3D 

1 

i 



» 



i 



IB 

BUR 



li 



HO 



■ 

ir 



m 



ft 



ft 
ft 

J 



Hi 



j 



■ 



1 



IK 



m 



MM 



flHUHl 



1 



I 



1 



Ifl 






I 



no 



I 



1 



flflftfl 



Hfl 



iffl 



SiiSli 



li 



■n 



« 



p 

I 
i 



11 



li 



r 



H 



m 
w 



fil 



m 



Jf 

fiifliun 

mm 
mam 



H 



ftfl 
SB 

Hi 



Hll 














X (J 











^0 c> 









• o- 




k 0o 



. 







"++ V* 








v. 



v 











.0* «, * <■ * 
>>^/rt>^* ' 












FORMS OF 



ENGLISH POETRY 



BY 



CHARLES F. JOHNSON, L.H.D. 

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN TRINITY COLLEGE, 

HARTFORD 

Author of "Elements of Literary Criticism" " Outline History 

of English and American Literature" etc. 



^c 



NEW YORK • :• CINCINNATI ■ :• CHICAGO 

AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 



Two Gooies Received 

MAY 3 1904 
Q CoDyrlgrht Entry 

SlASS (X- XXc. No. 

*> «) j' / «r 

COPY B 






Copyright, 1904, by 
CHARLES F. JOHNSON. 

Entered at Stationers' Hall, London. 



FORMS OF ENG. POETRY. 
W. P. I 



PREFACE 

This book contains nothing more than every 
young person should know about the construction 
of English verse, and its main divisions both by 
forms and by subject-matter. The historical de- 
velopment of eight of these divisions is sketched 
and briefly illustrated by examples, but the true 
character of poetry as an art and a social force 
has always been in the writer's mind. The study 
of prosody pure and simple is to most students of 
an average class wearisome and fruitless, though 
there are but few who do not become interested 
in poetry if the technical side is not exclusively 
regarded by the teacher. Such an interest natur- 
ally acquired in youth is of great value. It be- 
comes part of character. It usually results from 
the atmosphere of the family, but it may be culti- 
vated in the class room, and it is the object of this 
book to aid the teacher in doing so, either by its 
use as a text-book or by setting examinations on 
the chapters in "connection with courses of reading. 
The study and analysis of a classic text to fulfill 
the requirements of admission to college frequently 
has the effect of creating a rooted distaste of lit- 
erature and a sense of hopelessness of ever under- 
standing why it is considered admirable. This 
is a regrettable result; for a love of imaginative 
literature, if not artificial or sentimental, is a valu- 
able tonic in modern life, perfectly compatible with 
practical energy, and far more needed in intellec- 
tual development now than it was in the more 
romantic and credulous ages. 



4 PREFACE 

Only the elements of prosody are given, — only 
enough to show that verse has elements and a struc- 
ture, — for any one can catch the beat of a line of 
verse accurately, and that is all that is necessary 
to aesthetic comprehension. Moreover, an ingenious 
physicist may at any time prove that the acoustic 
basis of verse is something different from what it 
has been supposed to be. Should he do so, his dis- 
covery would not in the least affect our method of 
reading nor the pleasure we take in poetry, though 
it might give us a "metric" and a " rhythmic " 
based on fact. Helmholtz's discovery of the over- 
tones had no effect on the art of music nor on the 
pleasure its votaries take in hearing a symphony, 
although it amplified the science of sound. It is 
only the elements of the science of verse of which 
we can be sure. Beyond them it is hardly prudent 
to venture at present and certainly not necessary. 

This book is addressed to young people and to 
general readers. Still, the outline view of several 
departments that may be obtained from it may 
serve to render subsequent minute historical study 
of some one form more fruitful in coordinated 
ideas and less apt to result in partial conceptions. 
The writer has reason to think that there is room 
for a book of this character even in these days of 
careful specialization. 

The author's thanks are due to Messrs. Hough- 
ton, Mifflin, and Co. for permission to print illus- 
trative extracts from Mr. Lowell's odes, and to 
Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons for similar cour- 
tesy in the case of passages from Sidney Lanier's 
Centennial Cantata, and Miss Hapgood's Epic 
Songs of Russia. c. f. j. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I. The Foot, the Line, and the Stanza . -7 

II. The Ballad .60 

III. The Sonnet . ..... 107 

IV. The Ode 146 

V, Dirges and Memorial Verse . ... 189 

VI. The Lyric and Song 229 

VII. Society Verse and the Verse of Culture 275 

VIII. The French Forms 301 

IX. The Epic and the Romance . . -325 



FORMS OF ENGLISH POETRY 



CHAPTER I 

THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 

The worth of poetry depends on the fact that 
it gives pleasure to those who hear or read it. To 
give pleasure is the justification for the existence 
of any art, if we give to the term " pleasure " an 
extended signification. In the case of poetry the 
pleasure is very complex, as may be readily inferred 
from the truth that different kinds of versified 
language, different in subject-matter and form, 
please men of very distinct mental and emotional 
constitution, and in different stages of development. 
That the capacity of receiving some pleasure from 
poetry is almost universal may be gathered from 
the fact that in every age and in every condition 
of human society, poetic expression — sometimes, 
as it appears to us, quite rudimentary — has been 
cultivated, and frequently with great interest and 
fervor. Often we find the function of the poet 
regarded as of great importance. Ulysses says 
in the palace of Alcinous, " By all mortal men 

7 



8 THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 

bards are allotted honor and respect, because, 
indeed, the Muse has taught them songs and 
loves the tribe of singers." 

The complex pleasure or congeries of pleasur- 
able emotions of which poetry is the cause may- 
be analyzed with great minuteness, because human 
susceptibilities cover a wide range. A rough basic 
classification would be : first, the physical pleasure 
we receive from a rudimentary form of music ; 
time-beats, echoes, and successive notes related to 
each other so as to form a melody ; in a word the 
pleasure received from sound without much regard 
to definite intellectual impressions. A child listens 
attentively to the recitation of a ballad, the words 
of which it comprehends very imperfectly, to 
which indeed it may attach erroneous concep- 
tions. Some poetry is enjoyed by mature per- 
sons in the same way very much as music is. 
Notions of beauty and symmetry are dimly sug- 
gested, with little regard to the meaning of the 
words. Conscious thought is not appealed to, but 
the subconsciousness is vaguely but pleasurably 
stirred, y The capacity for this element of pleasure 
is substantially universal. The child in the cradle 
is soothed by the crooning of a simple melody, the 
sailors are cheered by shouting in time some mean- 
ingless " chanty," the schoolboy declaims his 
Homer, and the student his Swinburne, without 
much thought of the sense or the syntax. The 
words are little more than sounds, though that 



THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA O, 

little may be of considerable importance. It is 
this element of the pleasure-giving power of 
poetry, akin as it is to music, which lifts the art 
out of the rank of cultivated diversions and puts 
it among the great motive forces of the world, 
from the operation of which no one is exempt. It 
may be radically based on the fact that the con- 
stitution of the material universe is harmonious 
atomic vibration. /* 

The second reason for the pleasure taken in 
poetry is that the words have significance. Taken 
separately they have meaning, they symbolize 
things and abstractions ; taken together they con- 
vey ideas, relations of things, reactions of the 
human mind on experiences ; taken in combina- 
tion with measure and melody their significance 
and power are wonderfully reenforced ; they have 
the power of making us conceive things emotion- 
ally and vividly. No man ever reads poetry in a 
language he cannot understand, however melodious 
it may be. But those who read poetry in a lan- 
guage they do understand, even imperfectly, see 
the world and life in a new light, because they 
catch glimpses of them through the eyes of a poet. 
Unsuspected beauty in the flower or the landscape 
is revealed. They come in contact for the moment 
with an illuminated intellect. Honor and chastity 
and courage and love, all the virtues which they 
have been taught to respect as abstractions, are 
seen to be divine and to be active and permanent 



IO THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 

forces in life. This emotional and spiritual widen- 
ing of the intellectual outlook is a source of pleas- 
ure to the reader of true poetry, — a pleasure bound 
up with the other and inferior pleasure he receives 
from the regulated succession of melodious or 
sonorous sounds. 

A third pleasure we receive from poetry comes 
from the perception of artistic work. We admire 
any beautiful thing produced by a man not only be- 
cause it is beautiful, but because it is a work of 
human skill. Sympathy with our kind causes us 
to take delight in the earliest and crudest attempts 
at artistic embodiment in which, indeed, patience 
and simple-minded devotion to the idea of beauty 
are sometimes strikingly evident. A very slight 
knowledge of technical art increases our admiration 
of its manifestations. Poetry has taken many forms, 
— the heroic epic, the popular ballad, the romance, 
the short lyric, the lament, and many others, each 
of which expresses a distinct phase of poetic devel- 
opment. In many cases they correspond more or 
less exactly to periods of social history. They are 
combined and again dissociated. A knowledge of 
some of these forms adds greatly to our apprecia- 
tion of poetry. It would not constitute an under- 
standing of the real nature of poetry, but only of 
the construction of verse and of the characteristic 
forms in which poetry has found expression. In 
this book a classification of the principal forms will 
be given and the discussion will be restricted to 



THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA I I 

those which have been used in English literature. 
No minute subclassifications will be attempted. 

" Admitting that the pleasure which a knowledge 
of technical forms of verse adds to the reading of 
poetry is of an inferior, possibly artificial, nature, 
there is no reason to suppose it incompatible with 
the more elevated pleasure derived from aesthetic 
appreciation. On the contrary, a general knowl- 
edge of construction results not in less love but in 
a more intelligent love of art. Criticism, it is true, 
is sometimes vitiated by exclusive attention to 
merely formal matters, but that is not because the 
writer has learned the artificial rules deduced from 
the practice of poets, but because he is blind to the 
vital qualities of verse which are the only justifica- 
tion for the rules. Those who naturally and uncon- 
sciously love poetry in some form — and they 
constitute the majority of the human race — will 
find their appreciation enhanced and clarified by 
some comprehension of poetic forms. 

It is necessary first to define and discuss briefly 
the basic elements of verse — the foot, the line, and 
the stanza — before considering the larger unit, the 
poem. 

The Foot 

In verse, speech is arranged in units of one or 
more syllables, which divide the time of utterance 
into equal parts. These speech-time units, called 
feet, are marked by the presence of an accented 



12 THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 

syllable which serves to individualize them. The 
succession of nearly equal and nearly equidistant 
stresses or accents is the first element in the 
structure of the audible symmetry, called verse. 
Judging from the analogy of music, it seems highly 
probable that the time-beat of the accented syllables 
in a line of English poetry is exact. That is, that 
if in normal reading we strike twenty accents in a 
minute, each would be one twentieth of a minute 
apart — all would be equally spaced ; and if we 
should continue reading, we should strike twenty 
more accents in the next minute. There is, how- 
ever, no physical proof of this, and it would seem 
probable that while the norm or ideal is absolutely 
equidistant time-beats, asymmetry or a divergence 
from and constant recurrence to the norm mark 
successive lines of verse. Again, since the line 
has meaning, rhetorical considerations require va- 
riations of rapidity of the time-beats correspond- 
ing to the emphasis laid on the sentiment. But 
undoubtedly at the foundation of the poetic structure 
lies the equal time-beat, however it may be modified 
by something higher than mere mechanical acoustic 
regularity. In fact, to mark all the accents equally 
in reading would be to scan the line, which would 
be bad art. But the stresses must be so arranged 
that the normal, equidistant temporal beat of the 
verse structure continually suggests itself. How 
absurd it would be to read the Shakespearean 
blank verse : — 



THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 1 3 

To-mor — row and — to-mor — row and — to-morrow 
Creeps in — this pet — ty pace — from day — to day 
To the — last syl — lable of — recor — ded time, 
And all — our yes — ter days — have ligh — ted fools 
The way — to dus — ty death. 

But the five accents are there, and make the lines 
verse. All good readers suggest the scansion in 
reading, some much more than others, and none 
ignore it entirely. Scanning is simply pronounc- 
ing the accents at isochronous intervals. 

The foot marked by its accented time-beats falls 
under several heads distinguished by the number 
of syllables and the position of the accented sylla- 
ble' with reference to the others. These are still 
distinguished by the Greek names, which were 
based on the theory that quantity, or time occupied 
in pronouncing the vowel, not accent, marked the 
pronunciation units. Even now in reading poetry 
we sometimes drawl or prolong the accented sylla- 
bles as well as stress them. We read : — 

The splen — dor falls — on cas — tie walls 
And snow — y sum — mits old — in sto — ry, 

and the unaided ear detects that the vowels in 
" snow," "old," and " sto" are lengthened. Should 
we prolong them unduly, we should fall into chant- 
ing ; but should we read the lines with the ordinary 
conversational pronunciation, they would hardly be 



14 THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 

recognized as poetry even if we had accurately 
stressed the accents. There is, therefore, some 
reason for continuing to use the terms iambus, 
trochee, dactyl, amphibrach, and anapest, although 
the accent is the dominating characteristic of Eng- 
lish verse, and they referred to quantity. The 
terms are almost too well known to need definition, 
and we will confine ourselves to the statement 
that an iambus consists of an unaccented syllable 
followed by an accented one ; a trochee the reverse; 
an amphibrach of an accented syllable between two 
unaccented syllables; an anapest of two unaccented 
syllables followed by an accented one ; and a dactyl 
the reverse; and that an accented syllable followed 
by a pause sometimes fills out the time that a foot 
must occupy, though quantity is no longer the con- 
trolling criterion. The analogue of the spondee 
or foot consisting of two long syllables is very rare 
in the English language, being confined almost ex- 
clusively to hyphenated dissyllables both of which 
are accented, like " red-hot." But an iambus or 
a trochee is frequently used in imitations of classic 
meters to take the place of a spondee. 

The Line, or Verse 

The line is a group of feet which belong together 
and are individualized in printing and in pronuncia- 
tion. It should not consist of more than eight feet, 
and except in very rare instances does not terminate 



THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 1 5 

in the middle of a word. In reading it is marked 
by a slight, almost imperceptible pause at the end, 
and by stressing the last accented syllable with a 
little more force than the preceding ones. Origi- 
nally poetry was chanted or recited in a modified 
form of singing, not infrequently with a simple in- 
strumental accompaniment. Coleridge and Words- 
worth read their own blank verse in the chanting 
manner, and so did Tennyson, but the method is 
antiquated, and there is now only the faintest sug- 
gestion of chanting on a key different from that 
of ordinary conversation left in the reading of 
poetry. The line structure is marked more deli- 
cately, but it must still be marked distinctly. Other- 
wise the poem falls to pieces. 

In nearly all modern poetry the ends of the lines 
are marked by rhyme, and the danger is that the 
lines become individualized too completely and 
their mutual interdependence be lost sight of by 
the too great emphasis on the rhyming syllables. 
In blank verse, on the contrary, the line structure 
may be lost when the grammatical pause does not 
fall at the end of the line, unless care is taken to 
emphasize the final accent delicately. 

Terminal rhyme, or the echo between the sounds 
at the ends of two or more lines, sometimes suc- 
cessive, sometimes separated by intervening lines, 
is subject to certain arbitrary rules. It is neither 
identity nor mere similarity or assonance. The 
rules are : ist. Perfect or exact rhymes must couple 



1 6 THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 

the syllables on which the rhythmical accent falls. 
2d. The vowel sounds of the rhyming syllables 
must be identical. 3d. The consonant sounds 
which precede the vowel sounds must be different, 
and those which follow or close it must be identical. 
Perfect rhymes, then, would be roam and Jiome, dove 
and love, June and time. Imperfect rhymes would 
be June and moon, home and come, love and prove. 
Where the rhyming accented syllables are followed 
by unaccented ones, the unaccented ones must be 
identical, like idly and widely, people and steeple, 
charming and harming, morrow and sorrow and 
borrow. These are called double or feminine 
rhymes. Triple rhymes, where the rhyming ac- 
cented syllables are followed by identical pairs of 
unaccented syllables, like tenderly and slejiderly, 
futurity and purity, are rare. 

Terminal rhyme subject to these arbitrary rules 
is a comparatively modern invention. It is found 
in the Latin hymns of the church in the twelfth 
century, as : — 

Dies irae, dies ilia, 
Solvet saeclum in {willa, 
Teste David cum Sy billa. 

Tuba minim spargens sonum, 
Per sepulcra regionum, 
Coget omnes ante thronum. 

It has been conjectured that terminal rhyme was 
suggested by the usage of Moorish writers in Spain, 



THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 1/ 

but it seems possible that so pleasing a device 
might have been hit upon independently in any 
language. Its use became general in the eleventh 
century in France, and in the thirteenth and 
fourteenth centuries in the composite English 
tongue as it assumed form. Dante, Petrarch, and 
Chaucer are all rhymers, and the use of the closing 
echo has characterized the verse of their tongues 
by poets ever since. Of course assonance, or the 
pleasing succession of similar sounds, is the essence 
of the formal structure of poetry as well as the 
measured time-beat, whether marked by quantity 
or by stress, as is readily seen in the lines of Homer. 
It is modern terminal rhyme of which we are 
speaking. Sporadic rhyme, dependent largely on 
the fact that similar grammatical forms have simi- 
lar terminations, is not infrequent in Latin verse, 
as for instance in Horace's ode : — 

Phoe^, sylvarum^?/^ potens Diana, 
Lucidum coe// decus, O colen^/, 
Semper et cul//, . . . 

and it seems strange that poets did not even then 
consciously use words of similar sound to mark the 
divisions of their verbal structures. Possibly the 
use of quantity or the prolonged vowel sound was 
sufficient to give beauty to verse in the old pronunci- 
ation without any terminal rhyme echo. But the 
use of rhyme became almost universal when it was 
hit upon. 

FORMS OF ENG. POETRY — 2 



1 8 THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 

A question arises whether imperfect rhymes, in 
which the vowel sounds are similar but not identi- 
cal, like weather and hither, mar the beauty of 
verse. The answer to this must depend theoreti- 
cally on what is the real function of terminal 
rhyme, and practically on the usage of poets 
admitted to be masters of musical verse. 

The function of terminal rhyme is twofold : first, 
to mark the lines and thereby to emphasize the 
structure of the poem as band courses emphasize 
the stories of a building. We thereby perceive 
more readily the interdependence of the parts and 
the unity of the whole. For this purpose it is 
evident that the rhymes need not be exact any 
more than the band courses need be exactly alike. 
The second function of the rhyme is to give the 
pleasure which comes from linked sounds or echoes. 
The lines might be individualized by pauses or 
stresses, but the echo individualizes by a device 
which is beautiful in itself. Now, an echo is never 
a perfect reproduction of the original sound. It 
recalls it in a modified form, and, therefore, adds 
variety to what otherwise would be mechanically 
regular. A stroke on the bass drum marks the 
time very perfectly, but its uniformity is irritating 
after a few repetitions;- If the pleasure in reading 
poetry consisted only in a perception of pains- 
taking workmanship and difficulties overcome, per- 
fect rhymes would be indispensable. But the 
pleasure we take in poetry rarely rests on the con- 



THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 1 9 

scious perception of technical skill, but usually on 
an unconscious perception of order like that of 
nature in which the rigid law of uniformity is modi- 
fied by variations which suggest the law without 
following it slavishly, and give individuality to 
all the pines in the forest, yet mold them into 
a sylvan whole./ a In fact, the function of rhyme 
does not require that the assonances should all fill 
the requirements of the rules any more than it 
requires that they should all be on the same vowel, 
which, indeed, is, save in exceptional cases, con- 
sidered a blemish. To bring within the range over 
which our memory for sounds extends two such 
rhyming pairs as moans, groans, and stove, Jove, 
gives an unpleasant effect from too frequent repe- 
tition of the sound of the open o. 

The question must, however, be settled by the 
practice of poets, to whom is given the power of 
building musical word structures. This power, 
though largely increased by the reading — not by 
the study — of poetry, is instinctive and unaccount- 
able. Shakespeare, Milton, Shelley, Keats, and 
Swinburne are admittedly masters of musical verse. 
From a page of Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis, 
out of one hundred and twenty lines we gather the 
following eleven imperfect pairs: wear, year — 
imprinted, cojitented — one, gone — years, bears — 
fast, taste — kiss, is — drought, mouth — forage, 
courage — taste, last — quest, feast — heaven, even. 
Milton is a far more careful workman, but in the 



20 THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 

three hundred and twenty-five lines of V Allegro 
and // Penseroso we find the following pairs : 
melancholy, holy — thee, Jollity — thee, Liberty — 
due, crew — blithe, scythe — end y fiend — verse, 
pierce — tie, harmony — strove, above — throne, 
contempla/z'tf/z — among, song — bear, msphere — 
trage<^>, by — wont, hunt — breathe, underneath — 
ecstacies, eyes, or sixteen imperfect pairs in three 
hundred and twenty-five lines, a slightly less pro- 
portion than in Shakespeare's poem. It might be 
urged that in the pronunciation of the time some 
of the above rhymed more perfectly than they do 
in our modern pronunciation. Melancholy might 
have had the long o. In the same poem, however, 
it rhymes to folly. But the rhymes are quite as 
agreeable in the modern pronunciation as if they 
were perfect. 

In Shelley's Skylark, one hundred and five lines, 
we find twelve imperfect pairs: spirit, near it — 
wert, heart — even, heaven — clear, there — cloud, 
overflowed — see, melody — thought, not — leaves, 
gives — grass, was — not, fraught — flow, now — 
thee, satie^K — Hymeneal, be all. 

In the first two hundred and sixty lines of The 
Eve of St. Agnes we find sixteen imperfect coup- 
lets and triplets: was, grass — man, wan — freeze, 
oratories — door, poor — cavalzVr, oth^r where — 
moors, doors, hours — foul, soul — morn, crone — 
ear's, bears — secrerj/, privarj/ — last, chaste — device, 
eyes, heraldry — amethyst, prest — weed, bed —r 



THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 21 

moon, thereon — clarion, tone, begone. In some of 
the above the rhyming vowels do not agree, in 
others one of the rhyming syllables is unaccented, 
and in a few the final consonants are unlike. 

From this we may conclude that fourteen per 
cent of imperfect rhymes in no way impairs the 
musical effect of sustained verse. Mr. Sidney 
Lanier says in Science of English Verse: "The 
resources of the English tongue are such as to 
hold the poet always down to the rigid mark of 
perfection. If the rhyme is not perfect, if it 
demands the least allowance, throw it away. . . . 
The student may rest with confidence in the belief 
that no rhyme but a perfect rhyme is ever worth a 
poet's while." 

That is the creed of most verse writers at pres- 
ent, and the pains taken in hunting the rhyme is 
one of the reasons why their verses have a me- 
chanical effect and they are restricted to short 
poems. One of the most musical of the poems of 
the nineteenth century was Rossetti's The Btirden 
of Nineveh. This is written in ten-line, four-accent 
stanzas, the first four rhyming, the next ending 
in the obscure e sound, the next four rhyming, 
and the tenth ending in the word Nineveh. It is 
full of imperfect rhymes necessitated by the four 
rhyming terminals. Possibly Nineveh can hardly 
be said to be even an imperfect rhyme to destiny 
and history and the eighteen others, but the re- 
peated remote assonance is very beautiful, and a 



22 THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 

large part of the acoustic beauty is lost by chang- 
ing Nineveh to some other word — Babylon, for 
instance. This would go to show that a very 
remote echo at the end of a line may be very 
pleasant if the lines are not too near together. It 
is necessary to read aloud three or four stanzas at 
least to perceive that the fifth and tenth lines of 
the stanzas are connected : — 

In our museum galleries 
To-day I lingered o'er the prize 
Dead Greece vouchsafes to living eyes — 
Her art forever in fresh wise 

From hour to hour rejoicing me. 
Sighing, I turned at last to win 
Once more the London dirt and din, 
And as I made the swing door spin 
And issued, they were hoisting in 

A winged beast from Nineveh. 

A human face the creature wore, 
And hoofs behind and hoofs before, 
And flanks with dark runes fretted o'er — 
'Twas bull, 'twas mitered Minotaur. 

A dead disboweled mystery : 
The mummy of a buried faith 
Stark from the charnel without scathe ; 
Its wings stood for the light to bathe 
Such fossil cerements as might swathe 

The very corpse of Nineveh. 

The print of its first rush wrapping, 
Wound ere it dried, still ribbed the thing : 



THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 23 

What song did the brown maidens sing, 
From purple mouths alternating, 

When that was woven languidly? 
What vows, what rites, what prayers preferred, 
What songs has the strange image heard? 
In what blind vigil stood interred 
For ages, till an English word 

Broke silence first, at Nineveh? 

The extract is long enough to exemplify the im- 
perfect rhymes, but not long enough to bring out 
the beauty of the composition. 

Mr. Swinburne is confessedly one of the most 
musical of the modern poets, or of the poets of all 
ages. A stanza or two from his vigorous poem, 
A Watch in the Night, is enough to prove the truth 
of the statement : — 

Watchman, what of the night? 

" Storm and thunder and rain, 
Lights that waver and wane, 

Leaving the watch fires unlit,^- 
Only the bale fires are bright, 

And the flash of the lamps now and then 

From a palace where spoilers sit, 
Trampling the children of men." 



Italy, what of the night ? 

"Oh child, child, it is long; 
Moonbeam and starbeam and song 
Leave it dumb now and dark. 



24 THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 

Yet I perceive on the height 

Eastward — not now very far, 

A song too loud for the lark, 
A light too strong for a star." 

All the stanzas of this noble poem are equally 
musical, and it does not contain an imperfect 
rhyme. Still, a comparison with the poems before 
mentioned will show that its music is of an inferior 
order. The alliteration is too insistent and the 
time-beat too emphatic for subtle effects. The 
others are more free, varied, and natural. This 
seems less spontaneous. It would be saying alto- 
gether too much to call it " machine-made," but the 
taint of artificiality hangs about it. Machine-made 
things are technically regular and perfect, and hand- 
made things are full of little imperfections of de- 
tail which give the charm of individuality. The 
alliteration is a little overdone, though nowhere so 
cacophonous as in the line : — 

A mountain stream that ends in mud, 
Methinks is melancholy, 

an admirable figure spoiled in form by an inartis- 
tic vowel sequence. 

Macaulay's Battle of Ivryis a spirited battle ode, 
and the rhymes are all unimpeachable, but they 
suggest intelligent labor rather than spontaneity. 
The rhymes fall with the uniformity of the strokes 
of the metronome, and the vowel sequences though 
vigorous are harsh, and show that the writer lacked 



THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 25 

the instinctive appreciation of the " concord of 
sweet sounds" without which pains taken in per- 
fecting form is labor thrown away. 

The conclusion from examples is that absolutely 
perfect rhymes are not essential to the beauty of a 
poem, with the further suggested suspicion that 
energy may be so far spent in seeking them as to 
give the composition a stiff and formal character. 1 

Tone-color 

The combinations of feet into lines are, of course, 
numerous, and constitute the subject-matter of pros- 
ody, a science in which classification can be car- 
ried to great refinement. It is treated in many 
text-books. The word " meter " is used to signify 
a line, as in pentameter or hexameter, lines of five 
and six feet. It is also used for a specific combi- 
nation of lines, as in the terms, "common meter," 
"long meter," or " Sapphic meter." The aesthetic 
quality of the line depends principally on the fact 

1 It is of course understood that rhymes which suggest a vicious 
pronunciation are to be avoided. Furthermore, the final conso- 
nant sounds in rhyming words should be identical, — it is the vowel 
sounds that need not be precisely the same. Thus to rhyme main 
and name is not allowable, nor can similar instances be found in 
the work of recognized poets since the sixteenth century. In the 
old English ballads, rhymes with this peculiar kind of imperfection 
were occasionally used, as, for instance: gane, hame — hand, 
gang — home, on — dine, time — name, again — sin, szvim — flame, 
again — wine, time — weep, fee — him, green. Nearly all of them 
seem to be due to confusion between m and n, the sounds of which 
are not far apart. 



26 THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 

that metrical feet have other acoustic relations than 
that of stresses equally placed in time. Each foot is 
made up of syllables in which the vowel sounds are 
musical notes, produced by a musical instrument, 
the human organ of speech. The combinations of 
these sounds in the line are harmonious if the order 
in which they follow accords with their acoustic 
relations to each other, — relations far more delicate 
than the exact vibratory equivalents of musical 
pitch, though based on the same physical law. 
The consonants, too, which open or close the 
vowel sounds of words vary greatly in musical 
quality and can be arranged in sequences which 
are pleasing or the reverse, the most obvious 
arrangement being alliteration or the linking to- 
gether of words beginning with the same con- 
sonant. Internal alliteration or bringing together 
syllables of related consonant sounds is more deli- 
cate and artistic. It is these melodic sequences of 
sound which give the poetic line vigor, life, and 
indefinable significance, and to impart to it these 
qualities is the essence of artistry. As the notes in 
human speech are very numerous, each of our 
written vowels representing from three to nine 
sounds, the possible modulated combinations of ten 
syllables are countless even if restricted to those 
which have intelligible meaning. The poet is en- 
dowed with the power of instinctively selecting those 
which are melodious, and this power is an intimate 
quality of his nature. This skill is inborn and rare ; 



THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 2/ 

there lies deep in the man a sympathy with melo- 
dious sound combinations, and his words assume 
them readily. To other men who have not the 
power of creating them they give almost as much 
pleasure as they do to him. If this power is united 
with intellectual ability and keen perception of the 
emotional suggestiveness of things, we have a poet 
of the higher rank. 

The tone-color sense is like the color sense which 
constitutes the irreducible charm of some painters. 
It is a transcendental technic which cannot be 
brought within a set of scientific categories. We 
know that some words flow together and some do 
not. For instance, the name " phonetic syzygy " 
that has been invented for this poetic element is as 
cacophonous a combination as can be imagined, 
whereas the compound " tone-color " is in itself 
agreeable. The complicated music of a poetic 
phrase can be illustrated by few examples. As far 
as possible different vowel combinations have been 
selected and alliteration has been avoided : — 

Good night, sweet prince ; 
And nights of angels sing thee to thy rest. 

— Shakespeare. 

O delight of the headlands and beaches. 

— Swinburne. 

Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars. 

— Marlowe. 



28 THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 

Thaer com flowende, flocl sefter ebban. 

— Battle of Maldon. 

Envy and calumny and hate and pain. — Shelley. 

Ah ! What a sound will rise, how wild and dreary. 

— Longfellow. 

It will be observed that in most of the above lines 
there is one key word which if changed takes with 
it the beauty of the phrase. If in the first one, for 
instance, we substitute "spirits" for "angels," we 
lose the modulation between the first and second 
groups of vowels made by the successive /^sounds 
in " angels " and " sing." The following combina- 
tions have no music in them, though in all the 
accents are correctly arranged : — 

The babe, she thought, would surely bring him back. 

His crime complete, scarce knowing what he did. 

Brief time had Conrad now to greet Gulnare. 

She clasps a babe to whom her breast brings no relief. 

— Byron. 
Give yourself no unnecessary pain, 
My dear Sir Cardinal. — Shelley. 

Wide smiling skies shine bright. 

The melodic combinations of words should be 
continually varied, not to avoid monotony, though 
nothing is more tiresome than continual recurrence 
of similar cadences, but because they express 
emotion which rises and falls as different images 



THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 29 

are presented to the mind. Even harsh colloca- 
tions are sometimes emphatic and rhetorical and 
are effective in dramatic situations when passion is 
broken and inarticulate. But every feeling in the 
ordinary range of experience, every emotion which 
is related to the beauty and order and pathos of life, 
is reflected in some of the unobtrusive forms of 
verbal music, and we rank a poet as artist largely 
by his power to link words so that the sound sug- 
gests unformulated thought. Among the poets 
whose lines are marked by refined melodic asso- 
nances are Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Gray, 
Goldsmith, Coleridge, Shelley, Tennyson, Poe, Long- 
fellow, and others of less note. The music of each 
is individual like the tones of the voice. All are 
musical, though they vary widely in emotional 
range and interpretative insight. 

The Rhythm or Movement of the Line 

The sequence of stressed syllables or the rhythm 
of the line is another musical element hardly less 
important though less delicate than the " concourse 
of sweet sounds " of which we have spoken. The 
rhythm depends on the position and emphasis of 
the accented syllables and the number of unac- 
cented syllables between them ; that is to say, on 
the scansion of the line. This is usually to be 
detected by the opening and ending words, but 
it may sometimes be necessary to glance over two 
or three lines before we perceive the norm or con- 



30 THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 

trolling scansion if it is at all novel or intricate. In 
ordinary blank verse or the heroic couplet the 
scheme discloses itself at a glance, but in meters 
where variety is allowed it is not so easy, and an 
"ear for verse " or considerable practice in reading 
verse is necessary to determine where the lines of 
division between the feet should be placed. Me- 
thodical scansion is fortunately not necessary to 
intelligent reading or enjoyment of verse, and usu- 
ally a reader hits on the norm or general scheme 
instinctively. The prevailing foot gives the rhyth- 
mical movement of the line and influences its ex- 
pressiveness. Coleridge was one of the first to 
notice that the number of accents and not the 
number of syllables was the important matter in 
English verse, and that lines composed of different 
feet correspond to different phases of emotion. In 
the introduction to Christabel, in which anapests, 
dactyls, and two-syllable feet are all used with an 
instinctive recognition of fitness, he says : — 

" The ' meter ' of the Christabel is not, properly 
speaking, irregular, though it may seem so from 
being founded on a new principle, namely that of 
counting in each line the accents, not the syllables. 
Though the latter may vary from seven to twelve, 
yet in each line the accents will be found to be 
only four. Nevertheless, the occasional variation 
in number of syllables is not introduced wantonly, 
but in correspondence with some transition in the 
nature of the imagery or passion." 



THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 3 1 

There is not wind enough to twirl 

The one red leaf, the last of its clan, 

That dances as often as dance it can, 

Hanging so light and hanging so high 

On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky. 

It has been said that the slow iambics in the first 
line suggest quiet night. 

The second line is more drowsy. The spondee, 
" red leaf," makes the movement slow and halts the 
line. " Of its clan," anapest, however, imparts 
movement. 

In the third line, the iambics and anapests give 
more liveliness. 

The fourth line is more rapid still, and in the 
fifth the iambus and three anapests correspond to 
the idea of restless movement. 

Mr. Yeats's poem, The Lake Isle of Innisfall, is as 
wonderful for subdued tone-color as for expressive 
rhythm : — 

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfall, 

And a small cabin build there of clay and wattles made ; 
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey- 
bee 
And live alone in the bee-loud glade. 
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes 
dropping slow, 
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the 
cricket sings. 
Then midnight's all a glimmer and noon a purple glow 
And evening full of the linnet's wings. 



32 THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA - 

I will arise and go now, for always night and day 

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore, 

While I stand on the roadway or on the pavements gray, 
I hear it in the deep heart's core. 

Mr. Yeats's poem is a poetic embodiment of the 
homesickness of the exile or city dweller for his 
lonely birthplace, and the plaintive Celtic melan- 
choly pervades it ; but it is difficult to scan, and it 
is not improbable that if any one should construct 
the formula, the author would say nothing of the 
kind was in his mind. The beauty of the verse is 
almost as elusive as the form. Possibly there is a 
subtle connection between sentiment and embodi- 
ment which we cannot analyze. Possibly regular 
time-beats would not harmonize at all with the 
stifled sob in the speaker's heart. But the poem 
is at least an illustration of the connection between 
form and sentiment. The two accents on con- 
secutive syllables in the middle of the verse, 
"go now" — "some peace" — build ther', and 
so forth, give the lines a slow movement wonder- 
fully expressive of plaintive memories. 

The general principles relating to the effect of 
the different feet are : — . 

ist. Iambics alone give dignity and weight to 
the movement. For example : — 

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, 

The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea, 
The plowman homeward plods his weary way 
And leaves the world to darkness and to me. 



THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 33 

Cardinal Newman's hymn is another instance of 
the dignity imparted by successive iambics : — 

Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom, 

Lead Thou me on. 
The night is dark, and I am far from home — 

Lead Thou me on ! 
Keep Thou my feet ; I do not ask to see 
The distant scene, — one step enough for me. 

Some of the feet might be designated spondees 
as " Lead kind " — " Lead thou " — " am far," but 
the larger number are unmistakably iambics. 

2d. Trochees tend to give an effect of tripping 
lightness, as will be readily seen from the follow- 
ing extracts from Keats's Lines on the Mermaid 
Tavern : — 

Souls of poets dead and gone, 
What elysium have ye known, 
Happy field or mossy cavern, 
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern? 
Have ye tippled drink more fine 
Than mine host's Canary wine? 
Or are fruits of Paradise 
Sweeter than those dainty pies 
Of venison ? O generous food ! 
Drest as though bold Robin Hood 
Would with his maid Marian 
Sup and bowse from horn and can. 

3d. The three-syllable feet — dactyl, amphibrach, 
and anapest — also tend to give animation and 

FORMS OF ENG. POETRY — 3 



34 THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 

variety. As a rule they are used in combination 
with two-syllable feet and monosyllabic feet where 
the time is made equal by a pause after the 
accented syllable, which falls usually at the end of 
the line. Such monosyllabic feet occur in the 
extract from Keats given above. The three-syllable 
foot was used in popular poetry like the ballad 
from the earliest times, but was not much recog- 
nized in the poetry of culture till a later date. The 
Elizabethan Michael Drayton used three-syllable 
feet in his spirited ballad, The Battle of Agin- 
court : — 

Fair stood the wind from France 
When we our sails advance, 
Nor now to prove our chance, 

Longer will tarry : 
But putting to the main, 
At Kaux the mouth of Seine, 
With all his martial train, 

Landed King Harry. 

The three-syllable foot lends itself very naturally 
to poems of comedy. This may be seen in Gold- 
smith's Retaliation : — 

Who born for the universe narrowed his mind 
And to party gave up what was meant for mankind, 

and in the Haunch of Venison, conceived and ex- 
pressed in the true comic spirit. 

Hood's Miss Kilmansegg is another example of 



THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 35 

the adaptability of the three-syllable foot, especially 
the anapest, to lively narration : — 

Of " making a book," how he made a stir, 
But never had written a line to her, 

Once his idol and " Cara Sposa," 
And how he had stormed and treated her ill 
Because she refused to go down to a mill 
She didn't know where, but remembered still 

That the miller's name was Mendoza. 

How oft, instead of otto of rose, 

With vulgar smells he offended her nose, 

From gin, tobacco, and onion. 
And then, how wildly he used to stare, 
And shake his fist at nothing and swear, 
And pluck by the handful his shaggy hair, 
Till he looked like a study of Giant Despair 

For a new edition of Bunyan. 

The three-syllable foot is, however, not always 
comic, as witness the solemnity of Hood's Bridge 
of Sighs, where the repeated dactyls and the final 
accented syllable lend themselves to the dirgelike 
effect called for by the situation : — 

One more unfortunate, 

Weary of breath, 
Rashly importunate, 

Gone to her death. 

This, however, is a " tour de force." Triple rhymes 
have usually a jingling character that is well exem- 
plified in Gilbert's songs. The great master of the 



$6 THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 

music of the three-syllable foot is Swinburne, the 
first metrical artist of our day. The anapestic 
movement of the following is full of poetic 
energy : — 

I would that with feet 

Unsandalled, unshod, 
Over-bold, over-fleet, 

I had swum not nor trod 
From Arcadia to Calydon northward, 
A blast of the envy of God. 

But the same measure renders a humorous theme 
very appropriately in Bret Harte's Heathen 
Chinee : — 

It was August the third ; 

And quite soft was the skies ; 
Which it might be inferred 

That Ah Sin was likewise, 
Yet he played it that day upon William 

And me in a way I despise. 

It is worth noticing that the last syllable of the 
fifth line in the above stanzas is naturally trans- 
ferred to the beginning of the sixth line to keep up 
the anapestic movement. 

The general conclusions are that the prevailing 
foot gives the lilt or tune to the line ; and assonance 
or vowel sequence gives the melody. 

Change of the typical foot used so as to give 
variety of movement in successive lines correspond- 
ing to changes in the thought expressed is illus- 



THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 37 

trated by the extract given above from Coleridge's 
Christabel. To make a trochee take the place of 
an iambus, and vice versa, without ever giving the 
effect of a misplaced accent, is the mark of poetic 
power of the first rank — of poets like Milton, 
Shakespeare, and Coleridge. 

In Milton's V Allegro trochaic lines are largely 
preponderant, for the theme is the cheerfulness of 
the cultured man. Nevertheless, after the trochaic 
lines : — 

Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee 
Jest and youthful jollity 

down to, : — 

Come and trip it as you go 
On the light fantastic toe, 

we find the iambic lines : — 

And in thy right hand lead with thee 
The mountain nymph, sweet liberty. 

In the same way the lines : — 

Towered cities please us then 
And the busy hum of men, 

are followed by : — 

Where throngs of knights and barons bold 
In weeds of peace high triumphs hold. 

The verse of our day is not marked by this free 
and varied music. Many passages of Shakespeare 



38 THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 

could be cited where he passes from " grave to 
gay " with the same spontaneity and imparts to 
his words the same indefinable charm. 

We see the lines can be indefinitely varied in 
structure and melodic effect. Lines rarely contain 
more than six accent beats. If they do contain 
more, they split themselves into two parts. The 
old septenarius or seven-accent verse of the 
" clerkly rhymers " in Latin of the twelfth cen- 
tury is supposed to be the original of the standard 
ballad measure ; a four-accent line followed by 
a three-accent line. The eight-accent lines of 
Tennyson's Locks ley Hall divide naturally in read- 
ing into two of four accents each : — 

Comrades, leave me here a little, 
While as yet 'tis early morn. 

The standard line for sustained poems in the 
English language has five beats or accents. With 
adjacent rhymes it constitutes heroic verse or the 
pentameter couplet. Normally it consists of ten 
syllables and therefore contains iambuses and tro- 
chees only, but occasionally the last foot has three 
syllables and is virtually an amphibrach. This 
last form was used by Shakespeare in his later 
plays and by his successors. 

A good example of this eleven-syllable blank 
verse, is the speech of Cardinal Wolsey in Henry 
VIII, beginning : — 

" Farewell, a long farewell to all my greatness," 



THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 39 

in which more than half the lines contain eleven 
syllables. The rhymed pentameter is exemplified 
by Chaucer in the prologue to the Canterbury 
Tales, and in several of the tales themselves, by 
Pope in nearly everything he wrote, and by Dry- 
den in much of his verse. It is conjectured that 
the five-accent verse owes its popularity to the fact 
that it is just about long enough for utterance in 
a single expiration of the breath. If this is true, 
the Greeks must have possessed more capacious 
lungs than we, as their standard line was the 
hexameter. 

The next most popular line is the four-accent, 
eight-syllable. With adjacent rhymes it forms 
the octosyllabic couplet. The ease with which 
this is written has given rise to the expression, 
" the fatal facility of the octosyllabic." It was 
used by Chaucer or the unknown author of the 
Romaunt of the Rose, by Walter Scott in his longer 
poems, and by William Morris in several of the 
tales in The Earthly Paradise. It was derived by 
Chaucer from the meter of the French romances. 
Its " fatal facility " probably depends on the fact 
that it is about long enough for the ordinary gram- 
matical clause to fit into it. Both of these coup- 
lets are apt to become monotonous unless the 
movement is varied by the use of trochees with 
the prevailing iambuses, and such variation can 
be accomplished only by a poet of refined ear. 
Burns' s Tarn O'Shanter is a good example of this 



40 THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 

form, relieved occasionally by extra syllable end- 
ings making a feminine rhyme : — 

But pleasures are like poppies spread, 
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed ; 
Or like the snow-falls in the river, 
A moment white then melts forever ; 
Or like the borealis race 
That flit ere you can point their place ; 
Or like the rainbow's lovely form 
Evanishing amid the storm. 
Nae man can tether time or tide, 
The hour approaches Tarn maun ride, 
That hour o' night's black arch the keystane, 
That dreary hour he mounts his beast in. 

The Stanza 

The next verse unit is the stanza or group of 
lines. It may vary in length from the triplet to 
the seventeen-line stanzas of Spenser's Epitha- 
lamion, the lengths and arrangement of the lines 
may be permuted, and the arrangement of the 
rhymes, whether double or single, may also be per- 
muted. The combinations of all these elements 
give a great number of possible stanzaic forms 
even of the simpler varieties. Nearly every poet 
invents some new ones, and Mr. Swinburne's 
fertility in producing new measures is unrivaled. 
The number of stanzas ordinarily used is, how- 
ever, limited. The couplet can hardly be called a 
stanza, though sometimes, as in Rossetti's White 



THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 4 1 

Ship, printed in detached pairs, and therefore the 
triplet or group of three lines may properly be 
called the shortest stanza. Normally a period 
marks the termination of the stanza, and each is 
separated by a space. The form of printing, 
though of course it has nothing to do with poetic 
form, presents the scheme to the eye, and through 
visual perception the ear is enabled to apprehend 
the construction more readily. 

Of three-line stanzas Tennyson's triplets in the 
Two Voices are noticeable. In them the three 
terminals of each stanza rhyme : — 

" Consider well," the voice replied, 

" His face that two hours since hath died ; 

Wilt thou find passion, pain, or pride ? 

" Will he obey when one commands ? 
Or answer should one press his hands? 
He answers not nor understands. 

" High up the vapors fold and swim ; 
About him broods the twilight dim ; 
The place he knew forgetteth him." 

Another form of triplets known as the "terza 
rima " used by the great poetic artist, Dante, is 
written in three-line stanzas with three alternate 
rhyming terminals. Consequently one of the 
rhymes in each stanza responds to two in the next, 
making the rhyme formula aba-bcb-cdc-ded, etc. 
This is the form used by Shelley in his Ode to the 



42 THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 

West Wind. He, however, groups them into four- 
teen-line stanzas ending each with a couplet. This 
terza rima, though not very complicated, is very 
difficult to write, since the stanzas are neither 
entirely detached nor closely connected. 

The elements of variation make quatrains or four- 
line stanzas so numerous as to defy classification. 
Among the better known are ballad measure or the 
" common meter " of our hymnal, — lines of four 
accents and three accents alternately, the four- 
accent being the first and third of each stanza, and 
the rhyme being usually confined to the second and 
fourth terminals. The movement is usually iambic, 
some variety being obtained by the occasional use 
of double rhymes. 

The Ballad of Chevy Chase, quoted here in a 
modernized version, is an example : — 

God prosper long our noble king, 

Our lives and safeties all ; 
A woeful hunting once there did 

On Chevy Chase befal. 

The stout earl of Northumberland 

A vow to God did make 
His pleasure in the Scottish woods 

Three summer's days to take. 

Cowper's comic ballad, John Gilpin ' s Ride, is in 
the same meter. It has a popular, homely char- 
acter, and is one of the easiest of all meters to 
write. 



THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 43 

Tennyson's quatrain in In Memoriam consists of 
octosyllabic lines, the first rhyming to the fourth, 
and the second to the third. The echoing pair 
inclosed in another rhyming pair gives a beautiful 
effect, dignified and musical without monotony. 
Fitzgerald's quatrain used in his renderings of the 
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam^ in which lines one, 
two, and four rhyme, and the third is independent, 
is well adapted to brief sententious expression. 
Stanzas of five lines and more are very numerous. 
We will refer to a few of them which have his- 
toric interest or are associated with the names 
of certain poets. Burns wrote many of his best 
known and wittiest verses in a meter that he made 
peculiarly his own, consisting of three four-accent 
iambic lines, then a two-accent line, another four- 
accent line, and a closing two-accent line, the four- 
accent lines all rhyming and the two short lines 
rhyming together : — 

Had I to guid advice but harkit, 
I might by this hae led a market, 
Or strutted in a bank and clarkit 

My cash account. 
While here, half-mad, half-fed, half-sarkit, 

Is a' th' amount. 

I saw thy pulse's maddening play 
Wild send thee pleasure's devious way, 
Misled by fancy's meteor ray, 
By passion driven ; 



44 THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 

But yet the light that led astray 
Was light from heaven. 

The great metrical artist, Chaucer, adapted from 
Italian and French forms the seven-line stanza 
which he used in Troilus and Criseyde, in which 
the rhymes run a-b-a-b-b-c-c, a very beautiful form, 
as is evident from the following extract : — 

Criseyde was this lady name aright ; 
As to my dome in al Troyes citee 

Nas noon so fair, for, passing every wight 
So aungellyk, was her natyf beautee, 
That lyk a thing inmortal semed she, 

As doth an hevenish parfit creature 

That doun were sent in scorning of nature. 

Tasso used the "ottava rima " in Jerusalem 
Delivered, and Fairfax the Englishman translated 
it in the same meter in the seventeenth century. 
The rhyme scheme here is a-b-a-b-a-b-c-c. Byron 
used it in Don Juan, the Vision of Judgment, and 
several other poems, writing over eighteen thou- 
sand verses in this difficult form — difficult because 
each stanza requires two pairs of triple rhymes, 
a feat sufficient to establish his reputation as a 
technical artist. He uses many ingenious and 
unexpected double rhymes which give an air of 
whimsicality to the lighter passages. 

Sweet is a legacy, and passing sweet 
The unexpected death of some old lady 



THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 45 

Or gentleman of seventy years complete 

Who's made us youth wait too, too long already 

For an estate, or cash, or country seat, 
Still holding out with stamina so steady, 

That all the Israelities are fit to mob its 

Next owner for their double damned post-obits. 

In his Monk's Tale Chaucer used an eight-line 
stanza with one less rhyme on the first terminal 
and one more on the second, the scheme being 
represented by a-b-a-b-b-c-b-e, which would seem 
to be a sufficiently difficult structure. All these 
are in the five-accent pentameter line, but Spen- 
ser added to the last an Alexandrine rhyming on 
c, making the famous Spenserian stanza of nine 
lines. The closing line has great influence on the 
musical expression, giving it a stately, dignified, 
brocaded effect. Spenser wrote the Faerie Queene 
in this stanza, an enterprise calling for a vast fund 
of poetic energy even in its unfinished condition. 
Thomson's Castle of Indolence is in Spenserians. 
Shelley used it in The Revolt of Islam and in his 
lofty elegy, the Adonais, to the memory of John 
Keats. He calls it a measure inexpressibly beauti- 
ful, and says he " was enticed by the brilliancy and 
magnificence of sound which a mind that has been 
nourished upon musical thoughts can produce by 
a just and harmonious arrangement of the pauses 
of this measure." Keats's Eve of St. Agnes well 
illustrates the dignified harmony of which the 
Spenserian is capable. In Childe Harold Byron 



46 THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 

worked into it phrases of great power and rhetorical 
magnificence. It seems best adapted to express 
the spirit of an age of romance or at least of an 
age when the aroma of chivalry still lingered in the 
air and before the critical feeling of distrust had 
chilled generous enthusiasms. Tennyson used it 
with beautiful effect in a few stanzas in the open- 
ing of The Lotus Eaters, and as he did not continue 
to use it, it may safely be assumed that no one 
will write an extended poem in the Spenserian 
stanza hereafter. The stately architecture of the 
past can be reproduced, but its great poetic struc- 
tures cannot. The examples which follow illustrate 
its " linked sweetness " and structural decorative 
character : — 

A litle lowly Hermitage it was, 

Downe in a dale, hard by a forest's side, 
Far from resort of people that did pas 

In traveill to and froe : a litle wyde 

There was an holy chappell edifyde 
Wherein the Hermite dewly wont to say 

His holy thinges each morne and eventyde ; 
Thereby a christall streame did gently play, 
Which from a sacred fountaine welled forth alway. 
— Spenser, Faerie Queene. 

He hath outsoared the shadow of our night ; 

Envy and calumny and hate and pain, 
And that unrest which men miscall delight 

Can touch him not and torture not again ; 

From the contagion of the world's slow stain 



THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 47 

He is secure, and now can never mourn 

A heart grown cold, a head grown gray in vain, 
Nor when the spirit's self hath ceased to burn, 
With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn. 

— Shelley, Adonais. 

St. Agnes' eve — Ah, bitter chill it was ; 

The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold, 
The hare limped trembling through the frozen grass, 

And silent was the flock in woolly fold, 

Numb were the beadsman's fingers while he told 
His rosary, and while his frosted breath, 

Like pious incense from a censer old, 
Seemed taking flight for heaven without a death, 
Past the sweet virgin's picture, while his. prayer he saith. 
— Keats, Eve of St. Agnes. 

The Niobe of nations ! there she stands 

Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe ; 
An empty urn within her withered hands, 

Whose holy dust was scattered long ago ; 

The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now, 
The very sepulchers lie tenantless 

Of their heroic dwellers ; dost thou flow, 
Old Tiber, through a marble wilderness ? 
Rise with thy yellow waves and mantle her distress. 
— Byron, Childe Harold. 

" Courage," he said, and pointed toward the land, 
"This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon." 

In the afternoon they came unto a land 
In which it seemed always afternoon, 
All round the coast the languid air did swoon, 



48 THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 

Breathing like one that hath a weary dream. 

Full-faced above the valley stood the moon, 
And like a downward smoke, the slender stream 
Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem. 

— Tennyson, The Lotus Eaters. 

These extended examples are given because the 
Spenserian is our most important ancestral stanzaic 
form. Its day is evidently past. If no deeper 
reason militated against its use, the modern re- 
quirement of perfect rhymes would exclude it. In 
it are embodied some of the great poetic achieve- 
ments of the past. 

Poetic Syntax 

Since English poetry is written in sentences, 
though with considerable freedom from the ordi- 
nary limitations of prose syntax, the relation of the 
grammatical structure is a matter of no small im- 
portance. The meaning determines the rhetorical 
emphases and pauses, and it is necessary that these 
emphases should strengthen the metrical accents 
and the pauses help fill up the intervals between 
the time-beats. If the grammatical phrase or 
clause terminates with the line, one kind of effect 
is produced ; if, on the contrary, these terminations 
are placed in the middle of the line, another kind 
of effect is produced. The art of the poet is as 
evident in the manner he superinduces his gram- 
matical units on his metrical units as in his arrange- 



THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 49 

ment of vowel sounds. The two different methods 
mentioned above are best illustrated in the handling 
of the pentameter line, and the extreme and strik- 
ing illustrations of each one are to be found in the 
verse of Pope and Keats. Pope's method is to 
make each line a clause, and in many cases each 
couplet a sentence independent and detachable. 
The method of Keats was to make the clause ter- 
minate within the line, so that the meter and the 
grammatical emphasis are like two curves of vibra- 
tion of different frequency in the same string, pro- 
ducing nodes and overtones. The combination 
may give a harmony of a higher order than either 
unaided can. The two methods are called the end- 
stopt and the mid-stopt or overflow. 

Achilles' wrath, to Greece the direful spring, 
Of woes unnumbered, heavenly goddess sing; 
That wrath which hurled to Pluto's gloomy reign 
The souls of mighty chiefs untimely slain; 
Whose limbs unburied on the naked shore 
Devouring dogs and hungry vultures tore. 
Since great Achilles and Atrides strove, 
Such was the sovereign doom and such the will of Jove. 
— Pope, Translation of the Iliad. . 

A thing of beauty is a joy forever : 

Its loveliness increases ; it will never 

Pass into nothingness, but still will keep 

A bower quiet for us and a sleep 

Full of sweet dreams and health and quiet breathing ; 

Therefore on every morrow are we wreathing 

FORMS OF ENG. POETRY 4 



50 THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 

A flowery band to bind us to the earth, 
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth 
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days, 
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways 
Made for our searching. Yes, in spite of all 
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall 
From our dark spirits. 

— Keats, Endymion. 

In the first thirty-five couplets of Pope's Iliad 
all but six contain a line ending with the verb. In 
Endymion an equal number of couplets have the 
verb ending in thirteen only. In Endymion about 
one half of the lines end with a mark of punctua- 
tion, in Pope's translation about nine tenths. The 
difference of movement depends in part on the 
greater regularity of the accents in the extract 
from Pope, who adheres strictly to the iambic beat, 
while Keats uses trochees with great freedom. 
But the difference in the relation of the grammati- 
cal phrasing to the line or metrical phrasing is 
evident. The difference in effect is so palpable that 
it is difficult to realize that the two poems are 
written in the same form. 

The distinction between overflow and end-stopt 
is marked in blank verse. It constitutes the differ- 
ence between Shakespeare's earlier manner as seen 
in Love's Labor s Lost, and his later manner exem- 
plified in Cymbeline. Milton's blank verse is in 
the overflow manner and influenced his successors, 
Wordsworth and Tennyson. The distinction is not 



THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 5 1 

entirely confined to the pentameter, rhymed and 
unrhymed, but runs through all meters. In the 
rhymed pentameter the end-stopt manner is evi- 
dently monotonous and tends to bring the metrical 
framework too much into evidence, and to restrict 
the expressiveness of the verse to intellectual pres- 
entation. Such presentation becomes common- 
place in a few years, but the suggestiveness of a 
musical embodiment is interpreted anew by each 
generation. Pope lives by reason of a few witty 
and pithy couplets ; Shakespeare through whole 
passages and poems into which we read a different 
meaning from that which appealed to his contem- 
poraries. In opposition to this it must be confessed 
that Homer's hexameters are far more frequently 
end-stopt than are those of Virgil, and yet the Greek 
poem is more musical than the Latin one is. In this 
case the inferiority of the end-stopt method is over- 
balanced by the superior musical quality of the 
Greek tongue. Nor does Homer use the end-stopt 
manner to excess, about every fourth line overflow- 
ing into the next one. 

It is only the great excess of end-stopt lines that 
detracts from the expressiveness of verse, nor must 
it be supposed that their use is restricted to the 
pentameter. In short lyrics the metrical and 
grammatical phrases are usually conterminous. 
Short terminal lines in a stanza almost universally 
constitute a phrase. In Longfellow's Skeleton in 
Armor nearly every line is a phrase if not a clause : 



52 THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 

Speak, speak, thou fearful guest, 
Who with thy hollow breast, 
Still in rude armor drest, 

Comest to daunt me ! 
Wrapt not in Eastern balms, 
But with thy fleshless palms, 
Stretched as if asking alms, 

Why dost thou haunt me? 

In the above the emphasis of the rhyme and of 
the syntax almost invariably fall on the same word. 
The same thing may be said of the lines of Burns, 
especially of the four-syllable lines of his stanza, 
like: "Thy slender stem," "Thou bonnie gem," 
" With speckled beast," " The purpling east," 
"Amid the storm," "Thy tender form," etc. The 
same may be said, too, of the short lines in 
Holmes's Last Leaf and of many other lyrical 
poems. We must conclude that the painful itera- 
tion of the Dunciad depends upon the fact that 
Pope so frequently makes the couplet a complete 
statement and adheres so closely to the iambic 
beat, and not to the fact that the rhyme is so fre- 
quently on an emphatic word. There being no 
structural intricacy in the heroic couplet, as there 
is in the Spenserian, for instance, variety must be 
sought by overlaying the grammar with the rhythm. 
Variety is of no value except as the form cor- 
responds to the thought. Keats stigmatized the 
couplets of the imitators of Pope as " swaying 
about upon a rocking-horse " and says that they 



THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 53 

Were closely wed 
To musty laws lined out with wretched rule 
And compass vile. 

Coleridge and Wordsworth led the revolt against 
the decasyllabic couplet used in the old manner, 
and Shelley and Keats kept it up. It was a re- 
volt, however, as much against the spirit as against 
the method of the eighteenth century, for manner 
and significance are closely connected. Chaucer, 
who first used the decasyllabic couplet in our lan- 
guage, combines end-stopt and overflow lines into 
a flowing narrative unequaled by any successor : — 

Whan that Aprille with his shoures sote 
The droghte of March hath perced to the rote 
And bathed every veyne in swich licour 
Of which vertue engendred is the flour. 

The very breath of the spring is in the move- 
ment of the verse. Browning uses the pentameter 
with great freedom, but disregards the couplet 
formation entirely, and his emphatic syntax mini- 
mizes the metrical effect : — 

The woods were long austere with snow ; at last 

Pink leaflets budded on the beech, and fast 

Larches, scattered through pine-tree solitudes, 

Brightened, as in the slumbrous heart o' the woods 

Our buried year, a witch, grew young again 

To placid incantations, and that stain 

About were from her cauldron, green smoke blent 



54 THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 

With these black pines — So Eglaraor gave vent 
To a chance fancy. — Browning, Sordello. 

Running down a page of Sordello of forty-three 
lines, twenty-four have no mark of punctuation at 
the end, and only one ends with a period. 

In the hands of a master the overflow rhymed 
pentameter is well fitted to familiar verse when 
the poet passes from fancy to fancy without de- 
sign or effort. Shelley writes : — 

Upon the table 
More knacks and quips there be than I am able 
To catalogize in this verse of mine, 
A pretty bowl of wood — not full of wine 
But quicksilver ; that dew which the gnomes drink 
When at their subterranean toil they swink, 
Pledging the demons of the Earthquake, who 
Reply to them in lava — cry Halloo ! 
And call out to the cities o'er their head — ■ 
Roofs, towers, and shrines, the dying and the dead 
Crash through the chinks of earth — and then all quaff, 
Another rouse, and hold their sides, and laugh. 

— Shelley, Letter to Maria Gisborne. 

Julian and Maddalo is also written in the overflow 
manner which distinguished Shelley and Keats. 

Irregular Meters 

Some verse is written with no obedience to any 
rhyming or stanzaic formula. The lengths of the 
lines and the position of the rhymes vary appar- 



THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 55 

ently at random. We say apparently, for no work 
of art is produced at random. If it is not built on 
some plan that can be definitely expressed, it fol- 
lows a law of which the poet is unconscious ; the 
short lines, the long lines, the masculine and femi- 
nine rhymes have taken their places in accordance 
with the feeling to be expressed, and under the 
compulsion of the creative genius of the writer, 
otherwise they are inorganic and have no more 
beauty than a stone heap has. A heap of jewels, 
it is true, has beauty, but it is the beauty of the 
jewels and not of the heap. Fine lines will go 
far toward making a poem beautiful, but after all, 
they should be fine lines in their proper places, and 
the place for a certain line may be fixed by stan- 
zaic formula or it may be fixed by artistic propriety. 
A predetermined scheme of rhyme succession is 
not an absolute necessity to the production of a 
beautiful poem, as is seen in Milton's Lycidas, 
Wordsworth's ode on Intimations of Immortality 
from Recollections of Early Childhood, and many 
other "irregular" odes. Lowell's great Commem- 
oration Ode changes in structure, following the 
form most expressive of the feeling as the theme is 
developed. The opening lines of Lycidas are : — 

Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more, 

Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere, 

I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, 

And with forced ringers rude 

Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year; 



56 THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 

Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear 
Compels me to disturb your season due ; 
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime ; 
Young Lycidas ; and has not left his peer ; 
Who would not sing for Lycidas? He knew 
Himself to sing and build the lofty rhyme. 
He must not float upon his watery bier 
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind, 
Without the meed of some melodious tear. 

The lines have five accents with the exception of 
the fourth. In the next paragraph there are two 
short lines, and in the entire poem fourteen, thrown 
in at irregular intervals, sometimes as in the case of 
the line, " The glowing violet," giving a beautiful 
effect. The rhyme in the opening runs, a-b-c-c-b-b- 
d-e-b-d-e-b-f-b, in which no order can be found only 
the general idea of binding the whole by the rhymes 
on b : "Sear, year, dear, peer, bier, tear." The 
last eight lines of the poem follow the rhyme law 
of the "ottava rima." Nowhere else is the rhyme 
repeated so often as it is in the opening invocation. 
The irregular features of the poem are similar to 
the Italian "canzone." 

Wordsworth's ode on Intimations of Immortality 
from Recollections of Early Childhood is in eleven 
stanzas, varying in length from eight to thirty-nine 
lines, each of which treats a subdivision of the main 
theme. Of the two hundred and three lines, nearly 
one half are iambic pentameters. The others vary 
from six-accent to two-accent lines, thirty-nine being 



THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA S7 

four-accent lines. The rhymes come in such order 
as pleases the poet. There is no stanzaic law, but 
the entire poem is far from lawless. The parts 
cohere into an organic whole which is one of the 
strongest muniments to Wordsworth's title of poet. 
The second stanza will illustrate the free meter of 

the ode : — 

The Rainbow comes and goes, 

And lovely is the rose, 

The moon doth with delight 
Look round her when the heavens are bare ; 

Waters on a starry night 

Are beautiful and fair, 

The sunshine is a glorious birth ; 

But yet I know where'er I go 
That there hath passed away a glory from the earth. 

The successful use of irregular meter demands 
great poetic energy and the possession of some fine 
ideas. The effect in Southey's Thalaba, written in 
loose iambics, is exceedingly tame, and so are many 
of the Pindaric odes of the seventeenth century. 
We see that though poetry at the bottom is a 
regular acoustic structure, it admits in all its parts 
irregularities not simply for the sake of variety and 
breaking up monotony, but because they are expres- 
sive. The feeling varies and the form with it in 
true harmony. The deviations from the rule, met- 
rical or stanzaic, are dictated by the artistic sense 
and are justified by their effect. The same princi- 
ple holds in all arts and in nature itself, which pro- 



58 THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 

duces no absolutely symmetrical trees or mountains. 
Modulated variety on a basis of uniformity is the 
secret of beauty in music, architecture, and poetry. 
Lawless variety is not expressive of anything but a 
wealth of material. The artist has the power to 
combine strains of sound so as to be infinitely sug- 
gestive of thought — thought of which very likely he 
was not himself conscious. We can only point out 
a few of the elements which he does combine to 
make an // Penseroso or an ode on Intimations 
of Immortality. We recognize the product as 
something germane to the spirit of man, whether 
or not it is regular in form and conforms to laws 
critics have deduced or invented. It may follow 
precedent or it may not. Possibly the spirit of 
an age may demand a new form for the expres- 
sion of thought moods that are peculiar to it. 
But the new form is only a combination of the 
old elements, emphasizing some and minimizing 
others according to the poet's peculiar powers. 
He may even neglect the underlying element, the 
metrical accent beat, as Whitman did, and produce 
something that will appeal to a few by virtue of 
the presence of other elements. The regular met- 
rical beat alone is ineffectual because it may be 
mechanical. Vowel assonance or tone-color alone 
is tiresome, and stanzaic form alone would be value- 
less. It is the individual combination, different 
perhaps for each singer, that is expressive of a 
certain mood, of a certain attitude toward the world, 



THE FOOT, THE LINE, AND THE STANZA 59 

which could be exactly embodied in no other 
form. 

The poem as a whole falls under one of a num- 
ber of different heads distinguished by tenor and 
scope, as the epic, the ballad, the ode ; or by form, 
as the sonnet and the ballade. A full examination 
of any of these would involve a study of compar- 
ative literature and of literary history. In the 
following chapters brief definitions and a few 
illustrations will give a general idea of the mean- 
ings and limitations of these words. What has 
been said will give the student some idea of the 
many elements that are combined to make a poem, 
and of the complicated and difficult nature of the 
art of verse even on its technical side. 



CHAPTER II 

THE BALLAD 

The word "ballad" is derived from the root bal, 
meaning to dance, which is also seen in the words 
"ballet" and "ball." The derivation takes us back to 
a time when the public singing or recitation of verse 
was accompanied by rhythmical movements of the 
body, but it does not throw any light on the modern 
meaning of the word nor upon the origin or history 
of the early English ballad. Dancing in the form of 
processional maneuvers or graceful movements of 
the limbs was a part of ancient worship and of the 
expression of grief or exultation. David " danced 
and sang before the Lord." The Greek processional 
ode was accompanied with rhythmical movements 
of the singers. Our own Indians have their ghost 
dances, their snake dances, and the like, in which 
howling and jumping and gesticulation have about 
equal parts. The negroes of the South sway the 
body from side to side and stamp in accurate time 
when singing hymns. A survival of this original 
habit is seen in the games of children when they 
sing Ro7ind the Mulberry Ti'ee and the like. 
Possibly the expression " gave him a song and 

60 



THE BALLAD 6 1 

dance " refers remotely to this original habit. No 
more than thirty years ago it was possible to hear 
in parts of this country a ballad sung with a dance 
or "walk around " by the singer at the end of each 
stanza. So the derivation of the word "ballad" rests 
on a deep-rooted sympathy between means of 
rhythmical expression, but does not prove the 
antiquity of the present form, since the dirge and 
the triumphal war song, as well as the popular 
song, were also originally accompanied by dancing. 
Still, it is evidence that the ballad was always a folk 
song and not a literary form, although the original 
ballad may be as different from a ballad of the 
fifteenth century as Lead, Kindly Light is from 
the original tribal lament for a dead warrior chief. 
Again, the French form, " ballade," has the same 
derivation, but is entirely unlike a folk song, being 
extremely artificial and finished in character. We 
take the connection between " ball," ""ballet," and 
"ballad" as an interesting bit of the "fossil history " 
embedded in words, but without much evidential 
value as to the nature of the ballad composed in the 
English language. 

The most general definition of a ballad is that it 
is a short narrative poem in a simple meter, told in 
an unaffected, unornamented manner, with very 
little expression of subjective emotion. It is lyri- 
cal in the sense that it is fitted to be recited to a 
simple, monotonous musical accompaniment, but 
there is very little lyrism or rapturous, excited 



62 THE BALLAD 

feeling in it. Professor Child, it is true, includes 
in his great collection, English and Scottish 
Popular Ballads, some metrical riddles which are 
not narratives, but as a rule the word is restricted 
to narrative poems. Riddles, the answer to which 
gains a reward if correct, or involves the payment 
of a forfeit if incorrect, are, however, found in all 
ancient popular literature, and if in the form of a 
song, may, without undue stretching of the defini- 
tion, be called ballads. Riddle ballads are com- 
paratively modern in the form we have them, as 
they are on broadsides or printed sheets belonging 
to the seventeenth century. The following ex- 
ample has the ballad manner : — 

" If thou canst answer me questions three, 
This very day will I marry thee." 

" Kind sir, in love, O then," quoth she, 
" Tell me what your three questions be." 

" O what is longer than the way, 
Or what is deeper than the sea? 

" Or what is louder than the horn, 
Or what is sharper than the thorn.? 

" Or what is greener than the grass, 
Or what is worse than a woman was ? " 

" O love is longer than the way, 
And hell is deeper than the sea. 



THE BALLAD 63 

"And thunder's louder than the horn, 
And hunger's sharper than the thorn. 

" And poison's greener than the grass, 
And the devil's worse than woman was." 

When she these questions answered had, 
The knight became exceeding glad. 

And having truly tried her wit, 
He much commended her for it. 

And after, as it's verified, 

He made of her his lovely bride. 

So now, fair maidens all, adieu, 
This song I dedicate to you. 

I wish that you may constant prove 
Unto the man that you do love. 

King John and the Abbot contains a less primi- 
tive humor than the above. It also fulfills the 
requisite of embodying a narrative. King John 
hearing that the abbot of Canterbury "kept a 
far better house " than the king could afford, pro- 
pounds three questions which the abbot must 
answer in three weeks or lose his head. The 
abbot goes to Cambridge and Oxford, but none of 
the learned doctors can suggest proper answers. 
Returning home, he meets his shepherd, who, as he 
resembles his master, undertakes to go before the 
king " with crozier, and mitre, and rochet, and 



64 THE BALLAD 

cope " and answer the questions. The king puts 
the questions to him: — 

"First, when thou seest me here in this stead, 
With my crown of gold so fair on my head, 
Among all my liege men so noble of birth, 
Tell me to one penny what I am worth." 

The supposed abbot answers : — 

"For thirty pence our Saviour was sold 
Among the false Jews as I have been told, 
And twenty and nine is the worth of thee, 
For I think thou art one penny worser than he." 

The King he laughed and swore by St. Bittell — 
" I did not think I had been worth so little. 
Now, secondly tell me without any doubt, 
How soon I may ride this whole world about." 

"You must rise with the sun and ride with the same, 
Until the next morning he riseth again, 
And then your Grace need not make any doubt 
But in twenty-four hours you'll ride it about." 

The King he laughed and he swore by St. Jone — 
" I did not think it could be gone so soon. 
Now from the third question thou must not shrink 
But tell me here truly what I do think." 

"Yea, that shall I do and make your Grace merry ; 
You think I'm the Abbot of Canterbury, 
But I'm his poor Shepherd as plain you may see 
That am come to beg pardon for him and for me." 



THE BALLAD 65 

The King he laughed and swore by the mass, 
" I'll make thee lord Abbot this day in his place." 
" Now, nay ! my liege, be not in such speed. 
For alack ! I can neither write nor read." 

" Four nobles a week then I will give thee 
For this merry jest thou hast shown unto me. 
And tell the old Abbot when thou comest home 
Thou hast brought him a pardon from good King John." 

True ballads, however, are more of a story 
than the above and show no evidence of an at- 
tempt to be witty. They are for the most part 
written in ballad meter, stanzas of four lines, the 
first and third of four accents and the second and 
fourth of three accents, the second and fourth lines 
rhyming, and rhyming frequently on the e sound. 
As an example take the opening stanzas of Robin 
Hood and the Monk : — 

In summer when the shawes be sheen, 

And leaves be large and long, 
It is full merry in fair forest 
To hear the fowles' song. 

To see the deer draw to the dale 

And leave the hilles hie, 
And shadow them in the leaves green 

Under the green-wood tree. 

It is conjectured that this form arose from the 
use of a seven-accent rhyming verse in Latin called 
the " septenarius " used as early as the twelfth 
century. The often-quoted quatrain : — 

FORMS OF ENG. POETRY — 5 



66 THE BALLAD 

Meum est propositum 

In taberna mori, 
Et vinum appositum 

Sitienti ori, 

is made up of lines of four and three accents, but 
hardly seems like the model of the ballad measure. 
The French romances introduced into England by 
the Normans were usually in couplets. They were 
translated into English in stanzas of various 
lengths. How far the ballad measure resulted 
from a breaking down and simplification of the 
literary form of the French romances in becoming 
the metrical romances of England, or whether the 
ballad measure is a popular indigenous production, 
can hardly be determined. The interaction be- 
tween cultivated literature and popular literature is 
obscure because popular literature in its earliest 
stages is not preserved, since as a rule it is trans- 
mitted by memory and changes as the language 
changes. The old English ballads as we have 
them do not date from earlier than the fifteenth or 
sixteenth centuries. But ballads existed among 
the people and were sung either by professional 
or semi-professional minstrels at gatherings or in 
households in the time of Chaucer, for he intro- 
duces a mock-heroic ballad at which the marshal 
of the party scoffs. The Ryme of Sir Thopas 
is told by Chaucer himself, who is represented as 
one of the party. The Host says to him : — 



THE BALLAD 6j 

" Sey now somewhat sin other folk han sayd, 
Tell us a tale of mirthe and that anoon. 
Hoste quod I ne beth nat yvel apayd, 
For other tale certes can I noon 
But of a ryme I lerned long agoon." 

He begins, — 

" Listeth Lordes in good entent, 
And I wol telle verrayment 

Of mirthe and of solas ; 
Al of a knyght was fair and gent 
In bataille and in tourneyment 

His name was Sir Thopas." 

So he runs on in ballad measure for some two 
hundred lines, exaggerating a ballad motif ; the 
quest for the love of the fairie queene. He refers 
to the metrical romances in ballad form : — 

" Men speke of romances of prys, 
Of Horn Child and of Ypotys 

Of Bevis and Sir Guy, 
Of Sir Libeux and Pleyn-damour, 
But Sir Thopas he bereth the flour 

Of royal chivalry." 

Harry Bailey then interrupts him and begs him 
to relate something in prose if that is the best he 

can do in rhyme : — 

"No more of this for Goddes dignitee " 
Quod oure hoste, " for thou makest me 



68 THE BALLAD 

So wery of thy verray lewdnesse, 1 • 
That also wisly God my soule blesse, 
Myn eres aken of thy drasty 2 speche, 
Now swiche a rym the devel I biteche, 
This may well be rym dogerel," quod he. 

Chaucer then relates the prose tale of Melibceus, 
which is certainly " drasty" enough. This episode 
shows that in the latter part of the fourteenth 
century ballads were considered unliterary and 
unworthy of a poet of Chaucer's powers. The 
difference between literary literature and popular 
literature is in the tone and manner, for both 
handle the same material. Chaucer tells the 
tale of Hugh of Lincoln and there are several 
ballads on the same story. Literary literature is 
conscious of its dignity as art, it respects the 
literary traditions, it bears the burden of a moral, 
it is written largely for the educated and the 
powerful ; in the Middle Ages it was an expression 
of the sentiments of chivalry. Chaucer was a man 
of wide human sympathies, but he is a man of 
books. He wrote at the end of Troilus and 
Criseyde : — 

Go litel book, go litel myn tragedie, 
Ther 3 God, thy maker, er that he dye 
So sende might to make in som comedie ; 
But litel book, no maken thou n'envye ? 

1 Lewdnesse, ignorance, unculture. 

2 Drasty, worthless, empty. 3 Ther, would that. 



THE BALLAD 69 

But subgit be to alle poesye : 

And kis the steppes whereas thou seest pace 

Virgile, Ovyde, Omer, Lucan and Stace. 1 

Nothing of this kind intrudes into popular litera- 
ture. The balladist is intent on his story and his 
audience and brings in no personal reflections. 

Ballads continued to be regarded as hardly 
worth noticing till the early part of the nine- 
teenth century. Sir Philip Sidney expresses his 
wonder that he likes the ballad of Percy and 
Douglas (the Battle of Otterbourne, probably) in 
the often quoted passage from the Defence of 
Poesie (1581): — 

"Certainly I must confess my own barbarousness, 
I never heard the olde song of Percy and Douglas 
that I found not my heart moved more than with 
a Trumpet : and yet it is sung but by some blinde 
Crouder, with no rougher voice than rude stile, 
which being so evill apparelled in the dust and 
cobwebbs of that uncivil age, what would it worke 
trymmed in the gorgeous eloquence of Pindar ? " 

Before "the introduction of the art of printing, 
after which we may assume that the ability to read 
became more general, ballads were transmitted 
orally and were of course subject to more or less 
change in transmission. It was necessary that 
they should be pleasing to an ordinary audience, 
and each repetition may be regarded in a sense as 

1 Stace. Statius. 



70 THE BALLAD 

an editing. There is a tendency, however, to 
repeat poetry exactly as it is learned even if it is 
not understood, and this would operate to prevent 
change. As the language developed, obsolete 
words, or at least obsolete pronunciations, would 
be dropped. The conflict between these two 
tendencies, one toward conservatism and one 
toward innovation, has resulted in many variants 
of the older ballads. No doubt, too, the reciter 
would drop many stanzas from time to time and 
insert others of his own invention to please his 
audience. We may readily conceive a popular 
entertainer, professional or semi-professional, get- 
ting up his own version of a ballad learned from 
some older person. Hence an old English ballad 
is not only popular poetry in form, but it is popular 
poetry in the sense that it has been molded by 
popular sentiment after its first composition. No 
author's name is attached to the old ballads. 
Naturally, this must be the case with a song pub- 
lished orally and subject to a sort of evolution in 
transmission. 

In the sixteenth century, after the art of printing 
was well introduced, popular ballads were printed 
on a sheet of paper called a broadside and sold in 
many cases by the person who sang them in the 
streets or at fairs. This is the kind of ballad 
that Autolycus, the knavish peddler, has for sale 
in the Winter s Tale. The one he repeats is, how- 
ever, more of a song than a ballad : — 



THE BALLAD J\ 

Clown. What hast here? ballads? 
Mopsa. Pray now, buy some. I love a ballad in print. 
O' life, for then we are sure they are true. 
Autolycus. Here's one to a very doleful tune. 

t^ "Sp" "^ 3fr vfc $? 

Mopsa. Let's have some merry ones. 

Autolycus. Why, this is a passing merry one, and goes 
to the tune of Two Maids wooing a Man. There's 
scarce a maid westward but she sings it ; 'tis in request I 
can tell you. 

Falstaff is thinking of a ballad of this kind 
when he says, "An I have not ballads made on 
you all and sung to filthy tunes, let a cup of sack 
be my poison." Current happenings that were of 
general interest were made the subjects of ballads. 
The story of Othello forms the subject of one 
which Mr. Collier states that he found among the 
papers of Lord Ellsmere, chancellor to James I, in 
a volume of manuscript ballads probably copied 
from old broadsides. It closes : — 

Then with the dagger that was wet 

With his deare ladies blood, 
He stabbed himself and thus out let 

His soule in gory flood. 
This story true, you oftimes knew, 

By actors played for meede 
But still so well 'twas hard to tell 

If 'twas not truth in deede. 

Dick Burbidge that most famous man, 
That actor without peere, 



72 THE BALLAD 

With this same part his course began 

And kept it many a yeare. 
Shakespeare was fortunate I trow 

That such an actor had, 
If we had but his equale now, 

For one I should be glad." 

The date of this cannot be fixed with precision, 
but it illustrates very well the character of the 
broadside ballads. It will be noticed that it is 
ballad measure with the addition of rhyme in the 
first and third lines and occasional internal rhyme 
in the same lines. That this measure had a secure 
lodgment in the popular ear is shown by the fact 
that the Bay Psalm Book, the first publication in 
America, about 1640, is in this same measure, as is 
also Michael Wigglesworth's Day of Doom, pub- 
lished in this country in 1662. Some of the Puritan 
ministers, it is true, were university men, but in 
spirit they belonged to the people rather than to 
the aristocratic literary class. The 138th Psalm 
was rendered as follows : — 

The waters on — of Babylon 
There where we did sit down 

Yea even then — we mourned when 
We remembered Zion. 

The use of this meter must be held to prove that 
ballads in this form were very generally known and 
recited in the early seventeenth century even by 
sober-minded persons. 



THE BALLAD 73 

During the eighteenth century, in the reigns of 
Addison, Pope, and Dr. Johnson, the ballad was 
despised. Letters were "polite," and the ballad 
is not polished. In 1765 Thomas Percy, afterwards 
Bishop of Dromore, a lover of popular song, pub- 
lished a collection of ballads taken from a manu- 
script given him by a friend. Here were a number 
of ballads on historical, legendary, and romantic sub- 
jects gathered by somebody that loved them. Dr. 
Johnson considered them rubbish, but Thomas Gray 
was able to see their genuine poetic qualities apart 
from their interest as antiques. Goldsmith, who 
even in his college days wrote and sang ballads, 
produced two or three. And Cowper, who felt 
with many others a weariness of academic moral 
verse clothed in the rhymed pentameter, wrote the 
excellent comic ballad, John Gilpin s Ride. Then 
Burns, in the last quarter of the seventeenth cen- 
tury, showed the world that verses acceptable to 
the people, and sung or recited by the cottar's fire- 
side or in the village tavern, were delightful to all. 
Wordsworth went so far as to hold the theory that 
the " short and simple annals of the poor " told in 
the language of the uneducated were the proper 
stuff of poetry. His desire for naturalness and un- 
affected simplicity in manner, diction, and thought 
overdid itself in such poems as the Idiot Boy, Goody 
Blake, and Peter Bell, which approach dangerously 
near the ridiculous. Coleridge in the Ancient 
Mariner showed that the elements, of folk song 



74 THE BALLAD 

contained in the ballad on a supernatural subject 
could be combined by genius into an extraordinary 
and powerful art production. The old ballad ex- 
erted a great influence on letters, an influence 
towards simplicity and interest in poetic narrative 
which later poets have felt in greater or less degree. 
Scott from youth loved the Border ballads of his 
country, and made a collection taken principally 
from the recitations of men and women who pre- 
served ancestral songs in memory. His own poems 
like Lay of the Last Minstrel and Marmion are 
largely extensions of traditionary ballads, and he 
was of course an enthusiastic lover of the poetry of 
Burns. Burns is, however, a writer of songs rather 
than of ballads in the strict sense, but his verse is 
full of the popular element. During the nineteenth 
century nearly every poet wrote some ballads, not- 
ably : Mrs. Browning — The Song of the Brown 
Rosary and the Rime of the Duchess May ; Robert 
Browning — Herve ' Riel and How They brought Good 
News from Ghent to Aix ; Tennyson — Lord Bur- 
leigh ; Rossetti — The White Ship, Rosemary, Troy 
Town, etc. Thus the old ballad spirit, so long 
submerged but vigorous, brought to literature an 
element of interest and objective directness which 
it sadly needed, and enriched it with many poems 
of perennial attraction. These " literary ballads " 
of the nineteenth century must not be confounded 
with genuine old ballads. They are of course more 
finished, far more artistic, and they have a far wider 



THE BALLAD 75 

outlook on the world, they embody more thought 
and plan, but they lack the delightful freshness and 
spontaneity and democratic quality of their proto- 
types. A wayside flower may grow larger and 
more luxuriant under cultivation, but part of its 
original beauty came from our consciousness of 
its homely, natural surroundings. If the old 
English ballad owed anything to the " courtly min- 
strelsy of the fourteenth century," the debt is amply 
repaid. 

The old English ballads are anonymous. The 
authors of Chevy Chase, The Nut-broivn Maid, and 
Bewick and Grahame are unknown. Chevy Chase, 
doubtless, owes something of its present form to 
successive reciters, but even if it does, the original 
composer possessed no slight title to recognition 
and remembrance. The others may be more nearly 
in the form in which they were composed, and even 
if they are built upon former poems, are poetical 
works of a high order to which any man might be 
proud to sign his name as author. The personality 
of the author of popular literature is always in the 
background. His name is not signed to his work 
before the age of printing, and not always in later 
centuries. He did not belong to the literary guild. 
There was no copyright. His production belonged 
to the people, to any one who could learn and sing it. 
Possibly in many cases his social station was no 
higher than that of the " blind crowder " who sang 
his ballad. Whether he was a professional enter- 



j6 THE BALLAD 

tainer, a " wandering minstrel " who went from 
market place to market place and played and sang 
for his lodging and such reward as he might pick 
up, or whether he was an " honest tradesman " who 
had the gift, and sang at social gatherings among 
his friends, his name is forgotten in the natural 
course of events. He was not the inventor of a 
style nor a " leader of thought," but simply the 
mouthpiece of his countrymen in a matter of tradi- 
tional vogue, and he was one of a great number. 
He cooperated with his audience, who in a sense 
were quite as necessary to the production of his 
song as he was himself. He was not an extraordi- 
nary phenomenon as a modern poet takes himself 
to be, and took no pains to perpetuate his name. 
And so, the men or succession of men who com- 
posed the Robin Hood ballads have passed into 
oblivion with the man who copied them into the 
manuscript book happily found by Percy and the 
cook who tore out some of the pages to light his fires. 
The fact that the old ballads are anonymous, 
coupled with the fact that traditional versions 
handed down in different places vary so greatly, 
has given rise to the theory that the old ballads 
were not composed but grew, and thus are a popu- 
lar product in a peculiar sense as much as a tribal 
language is. According to this theory early sing- 
ing is a communal matter. A crowd, engaged per- 
haps in some occupation like beating out the heads 
of grain, is gathered. One or another sings a 



THE BALLAD 77 

verse of the traditional song, and the crowd unites 
in the chorus. Verses are extemporized to the 
tune, and in the course of years a ballad is devel- 
oped. That there was a time when language and 
poetry were in a fluent and undeveloped state and 
rhythmical utterance was unmeaning like a modern 
college yell — which also is anonymous — no one 
can doubt. An early stage of this " throng 
poetry " can be observed among the country 
negroes of the South, who sometimes accompany 
work done in common with a very primitive song 
and an unmeaning chorus or refrain. But even 
here there is always a leader who does the extem- 
porizing and has a reputation among his comrades 
for this sort of ability. The Englishmen of the 
fifteenth century whose ballads have come down 
to us were far beyond this linguistic stage, and 
doubtless some one man made up the ballads, 
though his song kept growing and changing with 
subsequent repetitions. Some of the flavor of the 
very earliest rhythmical utterance hangs about the 
old ballads in. the directness of the phrases and 
the simplicity of the tunes. Granting that they 
borrowed material from the courtly romances about 
the Round Table Knights and possibly adopted in 
part the manner of the courtly minstrels, the folk 
quality is evident, and in large measure they must 
be regarded as folk literature, — natural and indig- 
enous poetry, — but still as the products of individ- 
ual authors. Norman culture was grafted on the 



?8 THE BALLAD 

English stock, but in the ballads the stock deter- 
mined the characteristics of the flower. 

Closely related to the anonymity of the ballads 
is their objectivity. The narrator tells his story 
simply, and interjects no subjective emotion, very 
much as if a bystander of the occurrences should 
recall them to other bystanders. He assumes that 
they are familiar with the story, and his narrative 
is abrupt and disconnected and allusive. At most 
he may close with the remark, " And when they 
fight another time may I be there to see," or in the 
admirable ballad of Bewick and Grahame he may 
say, " I for one think these old men to blame," 
otherwise the pronoun / is never used nor is there 
any of the lyrical attempt to impart to the hearers 
the singer's personal emotion. Broad communal 
or national or human feelings only are appealed 
to, and appealed to by narrative and not by 
description. 

What we call literary merit in the specialized 
sense is not to be looked for in the ballads. 
Occasionally there is a phrase or two of reach 
and power, as when the singer in Chevy Chase de- 
scribes the death of Hugh Montgomery in two 
lines : — 

An arrow that a cloth-yard was long 

To the harde steel hailed he, 
A dynt it was both sad and sore 

He set on Sir Hugh the Montgomery. 



THE BALLAD 79 

The dynt it was both sad and sore 

That he of Montgomery set, 
The swan's feathers that his arrow bore 

With his heart's blood they were wet; 

or the great stanza closing Sir Patrick Spens : 

Half ower, half ower to Aberdour, 

'Tis fifty fathoms deep ; 
And there lies good Sir Patrick Spens 

VVi' the Scots lords at his feet. 

or a beautiful, fresh phrase or two in the Robin 
Hood ballads describing some feature of the " good 
green wood " ; but as a rule the singer is intent on 
his story. He uses no similes and indulges in few, 
and they the most obvious, reflections. He uses 
conventional epithets to which his hearers are 
accustomed. Gold is always " red," the ladies 
"fair." Certainnumbers, as "three " x and "seven," 
recur without definite meaning. " A league, a 
league, but barely three " means merely a short 
distance, or more than two leagues. " Three times 
round went our gallant ship, three times round 
went she," is probably a conventionalized expres- 
sion dating from before the conquest of Britain, 
and means merely that the ship fell off into the 
trough of the sea and sank. The ethical tone of 
the ballads is manly ; the fantastic notions of 
chivalry do not animate the personages so much as 

1 The expression " Three times and out " is very likely a survival 
of the ancient regard for the number three. 



80 THE BALLAD 

the human characteristics of constancy and loyalty. 
The quality of genuineness belongs to them in 
form and substance. There is no pretense, no 
false standard, no striving for effect. The ballads 
are germane to us as early Teutonic expression, 
not merely entertaining as antique bric-a-brac. 
They give us glimpses of the inherited supersti- 
tions of our forefathers which antedate Puri- 
tanism. We can see in a general way what they 
considered rights and honorable and how life and 
mystery appeared to them, for we have in the 
ballads something that they liked and handed 
down in memory and in fact created without much 
influence from French or Latin literary traditions. 
The old English and Scotch ballads have not 
come down to us through the medium of carefully 
written manuscript preserved in libraries nor 
through the medium of printed books. If they 
were printed, it usually was on a sheet of paper 
and not in book form. Here and there a person 
would write copies in a manuscript book, very 
much as one nowadays collects ephemeral verse 
from the newspapers in a scrap-book. There was 
no such thing as a standard text, and when the 
same ballad has been written down more than 
once, the versions vary materially. The most 
important of the old manuscripts is the Percy book 
before mentioned. Some of the broadsides or 
printed ballads were collected and preserved by 
those who had a taste for such things, and these 



THE BALLAD 5 1 

collections in one or two instances found a resting 
place in some of the English and Scotch libraries. 
After the publication of the Percy manuscript, 
Sir Walter Scott and others made a collection of 
Scotch ballads as they were taken from persons 
here and there who sang them and had learned 
them in childhood. Scott's Minstrelsy and Mother- 
well's collection are among the most important. 
Professor Child of Harvard collected two hundred 
and sixty-five ballads from all sources and printed 
them in eight volumes, giving many variants and 
the authority for each and paying especial atten- 
tion to accuracy, preserving some that might have 
been lost, and bringing all into a convenient form. 
It is not likely that many more can be discovered 
lingering in the memory of old persons in out-of- 
the-way places. 

The old ballads may be roughly divided accord- 
ing to subject-matter : ist. Those treating of some ^ 
tale of traditionary superstition : A minstrel or 
knight is beloved by the queen of Elfland and 
taken by her for seven years to the underworld. 
A man captures a fairy maiden, and she becomes 
his loving wife for seven years, till some chance 
happening breaks the spell and she returns to the 
underworld. A man is challenged by a repulsive 
hag to kiss her ; he does so, and the enchantment 
is dispelled and she becomes a blooming maiden. 
A woman leaves husband and children for an at- 
tractive lover who turns out to be a demon and kills 

FORMS OF ENG. POETRY — 6 



82 THE BALLAD 

her. Some of these stories are very old and are 
found in various forms in all languages and un- 
doubtedly formed part of the folklore of the earliest 
peoples. It is easy for us to read a moral into 
many of them, but of course none was consciously 
intended. Of the lady who sails away with a 
demon who beguiles her in the form of her early 
lover, we are told : — 

She hadna sailed a league, a league, 

A league but barely twa, 
Till she did mind on the husband she left, 

And her wee young son alsua. 

****** 

" O haud your tongue, my dearest dear, 

Let all your follies abee ; 
I'll show you where the white lilies grow 

On the banks of Italic" 

She hadna sailed a league, a league, 

A league but barely three, 
Till, grim, grim grew his countenance, 

And gurly grew the sea. 

" O haud your tongue, my dearest dear, 

Let all your follies abee ; 
I'll show you where the white lilies grow, 

In the bottom of the sea." 

Which he proceeds to do. In some of the variants 
of this ballad the picture of domestic happiness 
destroyed is simply and touchingly presented. 



THE BALLAD 83 

Thomas the Rhymer is a good illustration of the 
modified race legend. In Germany it appears as 
the story of Tannhauser in which the queen of the 
elves is made over into the Roman goddess Venus. 
It is given here in a modernized North of England 
form from Scott's Minstrelsy of the Border: — 

True Thomas lay on Huntley bank — 

A ferlie 1 he spied with his ee ; 
And there he saw a lady bright 

Coming riding down by the Eildon 2 Tree. 

Her shirt was o' the grass- green silk, 

Her mantle o' the velvet fine ; 
At ilka tett 3 of her horse's mane 

Hung fifty siller bells and nine. 

True Thomas he pulled aff his cap, 
And louted low down to his knee, 

" All hail thou mighty Queen of Heaven, 
For thy peer on earth I never did see." 

" O no, O no, Thomas," she said, 

"That name does not belang to me — 

I am but the Queen of fair Elf-land 
That am hither come to visit thee." 

" Harp, and carp, 4 Thomas," she said, 

" Harp and carp along wi me ; 
And if ye dare to kiss my lips, 

Sure of your bodie I will be." 

1 Ferlie, a wonder. 2 Eildon Tree, Ercildown tree. 

3 Tett, a braid or lock. 4 Harp and carp, play and sing. 



84 THE BALLAD 

" Betide me weal, betide me woe 

That weird * shall never daunton me." 

Syne he has kissed her rosy lips, 
All underneath the Eildon Tree. 

" Now ye maun go wi me," she said, 
" True Thomas ; ye maun go wi me. 

And ye maun serve me seven years 

Through weal or woe as may chance to be." 

She mounted on her milk-white steed, 
She's ta'en True Thomas up behind ; 

And aye whenever her bridle rung, 
The steed flew swifter than the wind. 

O, they rade on and farther on, 

The steed gaed swifter than the wind, 

Until they reached a desert wide, 
And living land was left behind. 

" Light down, light down, now, True Thomas, 
And lean your head upon my knee, 

Abide and rest a little space, 

And I will show you ferlies three. 

" O, see ye not yon narrow road, 

So thick beset with thorns and briars ? 

That is the path of Righteousness, 
Though after it but few enquires. 

" And see ye not that braid, braid road 
That lies across that lily leven ? 2 

1 Weird) fatal consequence. 2 Leven, a lawn or meadow. 



THE BALLAD 85 

That is the path of wickedness, 

Though some call it the road to heaven. 

" And see ye not that bonnie road 

That winds around the ferny brae ? 
That is the road to fair Elf-land, 

Where thou and I this night maun gae. 

" But, Thomas, ye maun hold your tongue 

Whatever ye may hear or see, 
For if you speak word in Elfyn-land 

Ye'll ne'er get back to your ain countrie." 

O, they rode on and farther on, 

And they waded through rivers aboon the knee, 
And they saw neither sun nor moon, 

But they heard the roaring of the sea. 

It was mirk, mirk night, there was nae sternMight, 
And they waded through red blude to the knee, 

For a' the blude that's shed on earth 

Rins through the springs o' that countrie. 

This is one of the best examples of the ballad of 
supernatural incident. The conception that all the 
blood that's shed on earth runs through the springs 
of the underworld is certainly a powerful one. 
The two roads — the straight and narrow path of 
righteousness and the broad road of worldly pleasure 
— are supplemented by the pleasant path of fancy 
winding around the ferny hillside. Does not this 
suggest a fuller correspondence to real conditions ? 

1 Stern, star. 



86 THE BALLAD 

We may follow duty, we may follow pleasure, or 
we may live the life of the imagination. 

The ballad with a supernatural motive has given 
rise to a number of literary ballads of the highest 
class : Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel, Cole- 
ridge's Ancient Mariner, Keats's La Belle Dame 
sans Merci, Rossetti's Kings Tragedy, Rosemary, 
and Sister Helen, Buchanan's Judas Iscariot, and 
many others. 
J The second class covers ballads on historical 
subjects which may be subdivided into those on 
traditionary, semi-mythical history, and those on 
historical events which took place within the mem- 
ory of men for whom the ballad was first written. 
Of the first division those celebrating the deeds of 
Robin Hood and his " merry men" are represent- 
ative. They fill entirely one of Professor Child's 
volumes. Some attempts have been made to prove 
that the hero was a living person, but without much 
success. He is probably a traditionary character 
of the imagination, and became an embodiment of 
the love of the Anglican race for outdoor life, 
hunting, and fighting. As he is treated as a real 
person and his adventures are all within the 
bounds of actuality, much more so than those of 
Ulysses or of Arthur, we may call him, without 
doing violence to words, a semi-historical person- 
age, although he never existed outside of the bal- 
lads and Scott's Ivanhoe. He lived in the minds 
of the people at least. 



THE BALLAD 8/ 

The ballad of traditional history occupies a 
middle place between the ballad of mythical his- 
tory and the true historical ballad. Its subject is 
historical incident so far removed in time as to be 
uncertain in its outlines. The " grand old ballad 
of Sir Patrick Spens," as Coleridge justly called it, 
is a fair representative of this subdivision, and 
there is no precise line of demarcation between 
it and the true historical ballad, as the proportion 
of fact and imaginative accretion ranges between 
wide limits, and the basis of fact is never entirely 
absent in tradition, nor is imagination ever entirely 
absent from historical songs even if composed soon 
after the event. The true historical ballads are 
those like Chevy Chase or Flodden Field or the 
the Battle of Philipsburgh, all on events which are 
recorded in history. Many of these are very 
imperfect as they have come down to us. The 
best literary ballad founded on this form is Scott's 
Marmion, which is almost epical in dignity and 
breadth. Many of them are founded on minor 
historical episodes. A splendid modern repre- 
sentative is Rossetti's White Ship. Longfellow's 
Paul Revere 's Ride, Whittier's Mogg Megone 
and Barbara Frietchie are fine ballads founded 
on minor historical incidents. 

The third class covers a wide range of subjects, 
usually tragic or pathetic. Lovers are separated 
by adverse circumstances and exhibit admirable 
constancy. A jealous sister, as in the strikingly 



88 THE BALLAD 

poetic ballad of Binnorie, compasses the death of 
the younger in a very cold-blooded and unrelent- 
ing manner. In the admirable ballad of Bewick 
and Grahame two "bullys" — sworn friends — 
are induced to fight by their fathers. One kills 
the other and then kills himself. As in the his- 
torical ballads, the motives of the characters are 
of primitive simplicity and their action is direct — 
there is no Hamlet-like hesitation in love or jeal- 
ousy. Hynde Etin is a ballad which, in one ver- 
sion — probably the oldest one — represents Etin 
as a forest demon, who obtains possession of the 
Lady Margaret by magic. In Etin the Forester he 
is represented as an outlaw, and the story turns on 
love and constancy. The ballad is then of the third 
class, the supernatural element having been dis- 
placed by the romantic. 

Etin the Forester 

Lady Margaret sits in her bower door 

Sewing the silken seam. 
She heard a not 1 in Elmond's wood 

And wished she there had been. 

She let the silk fall to her foot 

The needle to her tae, 
And she is aff to Elmond's wood 

As fast as she could gae. 

She hadna pulled a nut, a nut, 
Nor broken a branch but ane, 
1 Not, a note of the forester's horn. 



THE BALLAD 89 

Till by there cam' a young hynd chiel 
Says " Lady lat alane. 

" O why pu' ye the nut, the nut 

Or why brake ye the tree 
For I am forester o' this wood 

You should spier leave at me." 

" I'll spier leave at na living man 

Nor yet will I at thee, 
My father is lord of all this wood 

This wood belangs to me." 

"You're welcome to the wood Margaret 

You're welcome here to me ; 
A fairer bower than e'er you saw 

I'll bigg this night for thee." 

He has bigged a bower beside the thorne 

He has fenced it up with stane 
And there within the Elmond wood 

They twa has dwelt their lane. 

He kept her in the Elmond wood 

For twelve lang years and mair, 
And seven fair sons to Hynd Etin 

Did that fair lady bare. 

It fell out once upon a day 

To the hunting he has gane> 
And he has taken his eldest son 

To gang alang wi him. 

When they were in the gay greenwood 
They heard the mavis sing, 



90 THE BALLAD 

When they were up aboon the brae 
They heard the kirk bells ring. 

"01 wad ask ye something father 

An ye wadna angry be." 
" Say on, say on my bonny boy 

Ye'se nae be quarrelled by me." 

" My mother's cheeks are oftimes weet 

It's seldom they are dry. 
What is it gars my mither greet 

And sob sae bitterlie?" 

" Nae wonder she suld greet my boy 

Nae wonder she suld pine, 
For it's twelve lang years and mair 

She's seen nor kith nor kin. 
And it's twelve lang years and mair 

Since to the kirk she's been. 

" Your mither was an Earl's daughter, 

And cam' o' high degree, 
And she might hae wedded the first in the land 

Had she nae been stown by me. 

" For I was but her father's page 

And served him on my knee, 
And yet my love was great for her 

And sae was hers for me." 

" I'll shoot the laverock i' the lift 

The buntin on the tree 
And bring them to my mither hame 

See if she'll merrier be." 



THE BALLAD 9 I 

It fell upon anither day 

This forester thought lang 
And he is to the hunting gane 

The forest leaves amang. 

Wi bow and arrow by his side 

He took his path alane 
And left his seven young children 

To bide wi their mither at hame. 

"01 wad ask ye something mither 

An ye wadna angry be." 
" Ask on, ask on my eldest son 

Ask onything at me." 

"Your cheeks are aft-times weet mither; 

You're greetin' as I can see." 
" Nae wonder, nae wonder, my little son, 

Nae wonder though I should dee. 

" For I was ance an Earl's daughter 

Of noble birth and fame ; 
And now I'm the mither of seven sons 

Wha ne'er gut christendame." 

He has ta'en his mither by the hand 

His six brithers also, 
And they are on through Elmond wood 

As fast as they could go. 

They wistna well wha they were gaen 

And weary were their feet ; 
They wistna well where they were gaen 

Till they stopped at her father's gate. 



92 THE BALLAD 

" I hae nae money in my pocket 
But jewel-rings I hae three, 

I'll gie them to you, my little son, 
And ye'll enter there for me. 

" Ye'll gie the first to the proud porter 

And he will lat you in, 
Ye'll gie the next to the butler-boy 

And he will show you ben. 

" Ye'll gie the third to the minstrel 

That's harping in the ha', 
And he'll play good luck to the bonny boy 

That comes frae the greenwood shavv." 

He gied the first to the proud porter, 
And he opened and lat him in, 

He gied the next to the butler-boy, 
And he has shown him ben. 

*3l? vfc vfc yfc $(£• 

Now when he cam before the Earl 

He louted on his knee. 
The Earl he turned him round about 

And the salt tear blint his e'e. 

" Win up, win up, thou bonny boy, 

Gang frae my companie, 
Ye look sae like my dear daughter, 

My heart will burst in three." 

" An if I look like your dear daughter, 

A wonder it is none, 
If I look like your dear daughter, 

I am her eldest son." 



THE BALLAD 93 

"O tell me soon, ye little wee boy, 

Where may my Margaret be ? " 
" She's e'en now standing at your gates 

And my six brothers her wi." 

" O where are all my porter-boys 

That I pay meat and fee, 
To open my gates baith braid and wide, 

And let her come in to me." 

When she cam in before the Earl 

She fell doun low on her knee. 
"Win up, win up, my daughter dear, 

This day ye'se dine wi me." 

" Ae bit I canna eat father, 

Ae drop I canna drink, 
Till I see Etin my husband dear, 

Sae lang for him I think." 

" O where are a' my rangers bold 

That I pay meat and fee, 
To search the forest far and wide, 

And bring Hynd Etin to me." 

Out it speaks the little wee boy 

" Na, na, this maunna be, 
Without ye grant a free pardon 

I hope ye'll na him see." 

" O here I grant a free pardon, 

Well sealed wi my ain hand, 
And mak ye search for Hynd Etin 

As sune as ever ye can." 



94 THE BALLAD 

They searched the country braid and wide, 

The forest far and near, 
And they found him into Elmond-wood, 

Tearing his yellow hair. 

" Win up, win up now, Hynd Etin, 

Win up, and boun wi me, 
For we are come frae the Castle, 

And the Earl would fain you see." 

" O lat him tak my head," he says, 

" Or hang me on a tree, 
For sin' I've lost my dear lady 

My life's nae worth to me." 

" Your head will not be touched Etin, 

Nor sail you hang on tree, 
Your lady's in her father's court, 

And all he wants is thee." 

When he cam' in before the Earl 

He louted on his knee. 
" Win up, win up, now Hynd Etin 

This day ye'se dine wi me." 

As they were at their dinner set 

The boy he asked a boon. 
" I wold we were in holy kirk 

To get our christendoun. 

"For we hae lived in the good greenwood 
These twelve lang years and ane, 

But a' this time since e'er I mind 
Was never a kirk within." 



THE BALLAD 95 

" Your asking's na sae great my boy 

But granted it sail be, 
This day to holy kirk sail ye gang 

And your mither sail gang you wi." 

When she cam to the holy kirk 

She at the door did stan' 
She was sae sunken doun wi shame 

She couldna come further ben. 

Then out it spak' the haly priest, 

Wi a kindly word spak he, 
" Com ben, come ben, my lily-flower, 

And bring your babes to me." 

Ballads of this class, when short, differ but little 
from songs. As long as there is a narrative con- 
tained in them, even though it is not directly told, 
but poetically embodied, they are, however, prop- 
erly ballads. Two very fine short ballads are 
Edward and The Mill Dams of Binnorie. The 
Twa Corbies has but little of the ballad character 
except that, like the other two, it is a production 
of true poetic inspiration. The Lament of the 
Border Widow given below can hardly be called 
a ballad though an incident is touchingly pre- 
sented. At all events it is close to the denning line. 

The Lament of the Border Widow 
My Love he built me a bonnie bower, 
And clad it a' wi' the lily flower ; 
A brawer bower ye ne'er did see 
Than my true Love he built for me. 



g6 THE BALLAD 

There came a man by middle day, 
He spied his sport and went away, 
And brought the king that very night, 
Who brake my bower and slew my knight. 

He slew my knight to me sae dear, 
He slew my knight and poin'd his gear ; 
My servants all for life did flee, 
And left me in extremity. 

I sew'd his sheet making my mane, 
I watch'd the corpse, myself alane, 
I watched his body night and day, — 
No living creature came that way. 

I took his body on my back, 
And whiles I gaed and whiles I sat; 
I digg'd a grave and laid him in, 
And happ'd him wi' the sod sae green. 

But think na ye my heart was sair 
When I laid the moul' on his yellow hair? 
O, think na ye my heart was wae 
When I turned about, away to gae? 

Nae living man I'll love again, 
Since that my lovely knight is slain ; 
Wi' ae lock o' his yellow hair 
I'll chain my heart forever mair. 

It is quite evident that this is a comparatively 
modern production. The last line alone is enough 
to prove it so. Binnorie, on the contrary, bears the 
hall mark of antiquity. It was printed in 1656, 



THE BALLAD 97 

but still exists in tradition, and is preserved in many 
different versions. 

The Twa Sisters 

There were twa sisters sat in a bour ; 

Binnorie, O Binnorie. 
There came a knight to be their wooer. 

By the bonnie mill dams of Binnorie. 

He courted the eldest wi' glove and ring 
But he lo'ed the youngest aboon a' thing. 

The eldest she was vexed sair 
And sore envied her sister fair. 

The eldest said to the youngest ane, 

"Will ye go and see our father's ships come in?" 

She's ta'en her by the lily hand, 
And led her down to the river strand. 

The youngest stood upon a stane, 
The eldest came and pushed her in. 

" O Sister, Sister, reach your hand 
And ye shall be heir of half my land." 

" O Sister, I'll not reach my hand 
And I'll be heir of all your land." 

Shame fa' the hand that I should take, 
It's twin'd me and my world's make. 1 

1 Make, mate. 

FORMS OF ENG. POETRY — 7 



98 THE BALLAD 

" O Sister, reach me but your glove, 
And sweet William shall be your love." 

" Sink on, nor hope for hand or glove, 
And sweet William shall better be my love. 

" Your cherry lips and your yellow hair 
Garred me gang maiden ever mair." 

Sometimes she sunk and sometimes she swam 
Until she came to the miller's dam. 

O father, father, draw your dam 

There's either a mermaid or a milk-white swan. 

The miller hasted and drew his dam 
And there he found a drowned woman. 

In all the versions harp strings or riddle strings 
are made from the drowned girl's hair, which dis- 
close the elder sister's guilt when used. The 
refrain which should be repeated with every stanza 
adds much to the effect of this interesting ballad. 

Coleridge's Ancient Mariner is the best example 
of the regenerative effect of the popular ballad 
spirit when infused into a modern poem, and 
Buchanan's Judas Iscariot has caught the note 
with hardly less success. 

The Ballad of Judas Iscariot 

'Twas the body of Judas Iscariot 

Lay in the field of blood ; 
'Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot 

Beside the body stood. 



THE BALLAD 99 

Black was the earth by night, 

And black was the sky ; 
Black, black were the broken clouds 

Though the red moon went by. 

Twas the body of Judas Iscariot 

Strangled and dead lay there; 
'Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot 

Looked on it in despair. 

The breath of the world came and went 

Like a sick man's in rest, 
Drop by drop on the world's eyes 

The dews fell cool and blest. 

Then the soul of Judas Iscariot 

Did make a gentle moan ; 
" I will bury beneath the ground 

My flesh and blood and bone. 

" I will bury deep beneath the soil 

Lest mortals look thereon, 
And when the wolf and raven come 

The body will be gone. 

" The stones of the field are sharp as steel 

And hard and cold God wot, 
And I must bear my body hence 

Until I find a spot." 

'Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot, 

So grim and gaunt and gray, 
Raised the body of Judas Iscariot 

And carried it away. 

i-.Of C. 



lOO THE BALLAD 

And as he bare it from the field 
Its touch was cold as ice, 

And the ivory teeth within the jaw 
Rattled aloud like dice. 

As the soul of Judas Iscariot 
Carried its load with pain, 

The Eye of Heaven like a lantern's eye 
Opened and shut again. 

Half he walked and half he seemed 

Lifted on the cold wind ; 
He did not turn, for chilly hands 

Were pushing from behind. 

The first place that he came unto 

It was the open wold, 
And underneath were prickly whins 

And a wind that blew so cold. 

The next place that he came unto 

It was a stagnant pool, 
And when he threw the body in 

It floated light as wool. 

He drew the body on his back 
And it was dripping chill, 

And the next place that he came unto 
Was a cross upon a hill. 

A cross upon the windy hill, 
And a cross on either side, 

Three skeletons that swing thereon 
Who had been crucified. 



THE BALLAD 101 

And on the middle cross-bar sat 

A white dove slumbering, 
Dim it sat in the dim light, 

With its head beneath its wing. 

And underneath the middle cross 

A grave yawned wide and vast ; 
But the soul of Judas Iscariot 

Shivered and glided past. 

The fourth place that he came unto 

It was the Brig of Dread, 
And the great torrents rushing down 

Were deep and swift and red. 

He dared not fling the body in 

For fear of faces dim, 
And arms were waved in the wild water 

To thrust it back to him. 

'Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot 

Turned from the Brig of Dread, 
And the dreadful foam of the wild water 

Had splashed the body red. 
****** 
For days and nights he wandered on 

All through the Wood of W T oe ; 
And the nights went by like moaning wind, 

And the days like drifting snow. 

'Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot 

Came with a weary face, 
Alone, alone, and all alone, 

Alone in a lonely place. 



102 THE BALLAD 

He wandered east, he wandered west 

And heard no human sound ; 
For months and years, in grief and tears, 

He wandered round and round. 

For months and years in grief and tears 

He walked the silent night. 
Then the soul of Judas Iscariot 

Perceived a far-off light. 

A far-off light across the waste, 

As dim as dim might be, 
That came and went like a lighthouse gleam 

On a black night at sea. 

'Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot 

Crawled to the distant gleam, 
And the rain came down, and the rain was blown 

Against him with a scream. 

****** 

'Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot 

Strange, and sad, and tall, 
Stood all alone at dead of night 

Before a lighted hall. 

And the wold was white with snow, 
And his footmarks black and damp; 

And the ghost of the silver moon arose, 
Holding his yellow lamp. 

****** 

The shadows of the wedding guests 

Did strangely come and go ; 
And the body of Judas Iscariot 

Lay stretched along the snow. 



THE BALLAD IO3 

The body of Judas Iscariot 

Lay stretched along the snow ; 
'Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot 

Ran swiftly to and fro. 

To and fro, and up and down 

He ran so swiftly there, 
As round and round the frozen pole 

Glideth the lean white bear. 

'Twas the Bridegroom sat at the table-head, 
And the lights burned bright and clear, 

" O, who is that? " the Bridegroom said — 
" Whose weary feet I hear? " 

'Twas one looked from the lighted hall, 

And answered soft and slow — 
" It is a wolf runs up and down 

With a black track in the snow. " 

The Bridegroom in his robe of white, 

Sat at the table-head. 
" O who is that who moans without? " 

The blessed Bridegroom said. 

'Twas one looked from the lighted hall, 

And answered fierce and low, 
" ' Tis the soul of Judas Iscariot 

Gliding to and fro ! " 

'Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot 

Did hush itself and stand, 
And saw the Bridegroom at the door, 

With a light in his hand. 



104 THE BALLAD 

The Bridegroom stood in the open door, 

And he was clad in white, 
And far within the Lord's supper 

Was spread so long and bright. 

The Bridegroom shaded his eyes and looked, 
And his face was bright to see ; 

" What dost thou here at the Lord's supper 
With thy body's sins? " said he. 

'Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot 
Stood black, and sad, and bare, 

" I have wandered many nights and days, 
There is no light elsewhere." 

'Twas the wedding guests cried out within, 
And their eyes were fierce and bright ; 

" Scourge the soul of Judas Iscariot 
Away into the night." 

* ***** 

'Twas the Bridegroom stood at the open door, 

And beckoned smiling sweet ; 
'Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot 

Stole in, and fell at his feet. 

" The Holy supper is spread within, 

And the many candles shine, 
And I have waited long for thee 

Before I poured the wine." 

The supper wine is poured at last, 
The lights burn bright and fair; 

Iscariot washes the Bridegroom's feet, 
And dries them with his hair. 



THE BALLAD 105 

As the ballad is a Teutonic form and has grown 
up among English-speaking people, it is germane 
to our race. A versified incident told with direct- 
ness, simplicity, and rapidity, and appealing to the 
primitive emotions only, is sure to please even the 
modern generation. It has more affinity to our 
spiritual natures than descriptive or reflective 
verse has. Bret Harte's John Burns at Gettys- 
burg and Whittier's Barbara FrietcJiie are ballad-like 
in form, and in them poetry has its true character 
as a social force, something not confined to the 
cultured, but appealing to the people through an 
ancestral form. It must be a matter of regret 
that ballad composing and singing is not more 
general than it is among our people. With us 
the production of oral, popular poetry has largely 
taken the form of composing and singing hymns, 
which being confined to a narrow range of emotion, 
lack the germinal and developing power of ballads. 
For this very reason the study of the old ballads is 
especially valuable to Americans. 

The impulse which a true poet feels to speak 
directly to his fellow-men and not merely through 
books to the few, the consciousness that poetry is a 
broadly human expression, inspired the following 
sonnet by Hartley Coleridge : — 

Could I but harmonize one kindly thought, 
Fix one fair image in a snatch of song 
Which maids might warble as they tripped along, 



106 THE BALLAD 

Or could I ease the laboring heart o'erfraught 
With passionate truths for which the mind untaught 

Lacks form and utterance, with a single line ; 

Might rustic lovers woo in phrase of mine, 
I should not deem that I had lived for naught. 
The world were welcome to forget my name, 

Could I bequeath a few remembered words 
Like his, the bard that never dreamed of fame 

Whose rhymes preserve from harm the pious birds, 
Or his, that dim full many a star-bright eye 
With woe for Barbara Allen's cruelty. 



CHAPTER III 

THE SONNET 

The sonnet is in every regard different from the 
ballad. It is of a fixed length and meter, — four- 
teen iambic pentameters. It is a foreign importa- 
tion and has been used exclusively by the literary 
class ; the ballad is indigenous and belongs pri- 
marily to the people. The sonnet is never recited 
or sung, though its Italian original, "sonnetto," 
means little song, and there are no anonymous 
sonnets. But as the sonnet form has been used 
with brief intermissions in our language since the 
sixteenth century and since the thirteenth century 
in Italy, it, too, has stood the test of time, and if 
it does not contain any popular quality, must have 
in itself an element of artistic perfection. 

The rules of the construction of a pure or Italian 
sonnet are : 1st. As said above, it must consist of 
fourteen five-accent lines of ten syllables each. 
2d. It must be divided metrically into two parts ; 
the first or octave — or octette — is made of eight 
lines, rhyming a-b-b-a-a-b-b-a, the remaining six lines, 
the sextette, rhyming in any fashion on either two 
or three terminals, as, c-d-c-d-c-d, or c-d-e-e-d-c. 

107 



108 THE SONNET 

There are several other admissible arrangements in 
the octave, but the pure sonnet must be as above. 

The rules for the logical construction are less 
positive. They are : The octave should terminate 
with a period. It should make the statement or 
contain the description from which the sextette 
draws the conclusion or reflection. Many of Mil- 
ton's and Wordsworth's sonnets do not observe 
this last rule ; the conclusion is sometimes con- 
fined to the two or three closing lines or left to the 
reader. But the best effect is attained when the 
logical divisions correspond nearly to the metrical 
divisions. The following sonnet by Blanco White 
illustrates the principle, and was ranked very high 
by Coleridge : — 

Night 

Mysterious Night ! when our first parent knew 
Thee from report divine and heard thy name, 
Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, 

This glorious canopy of light and blue? 

Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew, 

Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, 
Hesperus with the host of heaven came, 

And, lo ! creation widened in man's view. 

Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed 
Within thy beams, O Sun ! or who could find 

Whilst flower and leaf and insect stood revealed 
That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind ! 

Why do we then shun death with anxious strife? 

If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not Life ? 



THE SONNET IO9 

Here the fundamental idea of the emotion of the 
first man on seeing the first sunset is contained in 
the octave. The reflection that no one could imag- 
ine that an unknown universe is revealed by dark- 
ness and may be still further disclosed by death is 
put into the sextette. The following sonnet by 
Wordsworth is all description permeated by emo- 
tion. There is no real logical division, though the 
metrical division is of course observed. 

Westminster Bridge (Sunrise) 

Earth has not anything to show more fair ; 

Dull would he be of soul who could pass by 

A sight so touching in its majesty ; 
This city now doth like a garment wear 
The beauty of the morning ; silent, bare, 

Ships, towers, domes, theaters, and temples lie 

Open unto the fields and to the sky, 
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. 
Never did sun more beautifully steep 

In his first splendor valley, rock, or hill 
Ne'er saw I, never felt a calm so deep : 

The river glideth at his own sweet will : 
Dear God, the very houses seem asleep 

And all that mighty heart is lying still. 

Keats's fine sonnet on looking into Chapman's 
Homer fulfills the logical conditions. The octave 
states that he had read much poetry, had heard of 
Homer, but knew nothing of his epic till he read 
Chapman's translation. The sextette describes his 



1 10 THE SONNET 

emotion and compares it to that of Cortez when 
he first looked on a new ocean. It was in reality 
Balboa who discovered the Pacific, but the mistake 
does not affect the beauty of the sonnet. 

Much have I traveled in the realms of gold, 

And many goodly states and kingdoms seen ; 

Round many western islands have I been 
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. 
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told 

That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne ; 

Yet never did I breathe its pure serene 
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold. 

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies 
When a new planet swims into his ken, 

Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes 
He stared at the Pacific — and all his men 

Looked at each other with a wild surmise 
Silent, upon a peak in Darien. 

Milton's sonnet on The Late Massacre in Pied- 
mont is a tremendous invocation for vengeance, 
without a break from the first line to the last. 

Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones 
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold ; 
Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old, 

When all our fathers worshiped stocks and stones, 

Forget not. In thy book record their groans 
Who were thy sheep and in their ancient fold 
Slain by the bloody Piedmontese that rolled 

Mother with infant down the rock. Their moans 



THE SONNET I I I 

The vales redoubled to the hills and they 

To heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow 

O'er all the Italian folds where still doth sway 
The triple tyrant ; that from these may grow 

A hundredfold, who having learnt thy way 
Early may fly the Babylonian woe. 

There is a metrical rule that all the rhymes in 
the octave should not be the same vowel. That 
is broken in the above, the o sound running 
through the octave and through half the sextette. 
It may be questioned, however, whether the em- 
phasis of the curse is not strengthened by the 
monotonous repetition. There is another rule that 
a sonnet should not end with a couplet. The first 
example breaks this rule, and so do many of the 
strongest sonnets in the language. The early 
Italians laid down a number of minor regulations, 
requiring, for instance, that the octave should be 
grammatically divided into two quatrains, and the 
sextette into two terzettes. These are an outcome 
of the disposition of the Latin mind to codify — to 
make minute regulations and ignore the principle 
of liberty under the law which gives life to all art 
products. Technical rules are necessary, but they 
have their limitations, and genius interprets them 
better than pedantry can. The sonnet, it is true, 
is an artificial poem and therefore subject to rigid 
structural law, but these laws are not a priori and 
must be deduced from the practice of the great 
poets. The only rigid rules are questions of defi- 



I I 2 THE SONNET 

nition, and determine the length — fourteen lines 
— and the metrical divfsion into octave and sextette. 
There is a variant of the pure or Italian sonnet 
in which the rhymes in the octave are alternate 
ab, abb, aba, and follow the same order backward 
and forward. This does not differ much in me- 
lodic effect from the regular arrangement, and re- 
tains the advantage of unequal paragraphing in 
the independence of the octave and sextette. An 
example is Andrew Lang's sonnet on the thought 
that although antiquarian research violates the 
tombs of Cassandra and Agamemnon, still Homer 
remains an ideal source of a great poetic unity not 
analyzed into a set of minor balladists. 

Homeric Unity 1 

The Sacred soil of Ilios is rent 

With shaft and pit ; foiled waters wander slow 
Through plains where Simois and Scamander went 

To war with gods and heroes long ago. 

Nor yet to dark Cassandra lying low 
In rich Mycenae do the Fates relent ; 

The bones of Agamemnon are a show, 
And ruined is his royal monument. 

The dust and awful treasures of the dead 
Hath learning scattered wide, but vainly thee, 

Homer, she measures with her Lesbian lead, 
And strives to rend thy songs, too blind is she 

To know the crown on thine immortal head 
Of indivisible supremacy. 
1 Prefixed to the translation of the Iliad. London, 1883. 



THE SONNET 113 

The Irregular or Shakespearean Sonnet 

The sonnet form was introduced into English 
verse early in the sixteenth century by Sir Thomas 
Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, two 
young men of culture and aristocratic birth, who 
admired the love sonnets of the Italian poet, Fran- 
cis Petrarch, of the fourteenth century. Wyaty 
wrote thirty-three of these short poems and en 
deavored to adhere to the Italian form. Surrey 
wrote fifteen and departed from the Italian model, 
disregarding almost entirely the metrical and gram- 
matical division into two parts of eight and six 
lines, and losing thereby most of the characteristic 
beauty of the sonnet form. The young Earl of 
Surrey, however, hit upon the form of three alter- 
nately rhyming quatrains and closing couplet 
which from its use by William Shakespeare fifty 
years later has been called the Shakespearean 
Sonnet. The rhyme scheme of this is abab, 
cdcd, efefy gg. The following is an example by 
Surrey : — 

On the Life and Death of Sardanapalus 

The Assyrian King, in peace, with foul desire 
And filthy lusts that stained his regal heart, 

In war, that should set princely hearts on fire, 
Did yield, vanquisht for want of martial art. 

The dint of swords from kisses seemed strange, 
And harder than his lady's side his targe, 

FORMS OF ENG. POETRY — 8 



114 THE SONNET 

From gluttons' feasts to soldiers' fare a change, 
His helmet, far above a garland's charge : 

Who scarce the name of manhood did retain 
Drenched in sloth and womanish delight, 

Feeble of spirit, impatient of pain, 

When he had lost his honor and his right — 

Proud time of wealth, in storms appalled with dread, 

Murdered himself to show some manful deed. 

Surrey was executed in his thirtieth year on a 
charge of high treason against Henry VIII, and 
it has been conjectured that the foregoing sonnet 
is a covert satire on the king, and that the king's 
resentment influenced the sentence to death. As, 
however, the young man and his father, the power- 
ful Duke of Norfolk, had been guilty of construc- 
tive treason, and favored the Catholic party, the 
conjecture finds little support. Neither from the 
political nor from the literary standpoint is the son- 
net quite bad enough to justify a resort to extreme 
measures. 

In the latter half of the sixteenth century the 
sonnet became very popular. It was the recog- 
nized vehicle for both courtly compliments and 
philosophical thought. Several of the Elizabethan 
poets wrote "sonnet sequences," or a number of 
these short poems on the same general theme. 
Sir Philip Sidney wrote a series entitled Astrophel 
and Stella (Star-lover and Star), in honor of the 
beautiful Penelope Devereux, Lady Rich. He 
uses both forms indifferently, but, in common 



THE SONNET 1 1 5 

with all the sonnet writers of the period, closes 
with a couplet. His are far better finished than 
those of Surrey and Wyatt. An example of each 
form is appended: — 

Because I breathe not love to every one 

Nor do not use set colors for to wear, 

Nor nourish special locks of vowed hair, 
Nor give each speech a full point of a groan, 
The courtly nymphs acquainted with the moan 

Of them who in their lips Love's standard bear ; 

" What he ! " say they of me. " Now I dare swear 
He cannot love ; no, no, let him alone." 
And think so still, so Stella know my mind ; 

Profess, indeed, I do not Cupid's art ; 
But you fair maids, at length this true shall find, 

That his right badge is worn but in the heart : 
Dumb swans, not chatt'ring pies, do lovers prove, 
They love indeed who quake to say they love. 

Death an Ordinance of Nature and therefore Good 

Since Nature's works be good, and death doth serve 

As Nature's work, why should we fear to die? 
Since fear is vain but when it may preserve, 

Why should we fear that which we cannot fly ? 
Fear is more pain than is the pain it fears, 

Disarming human minds of native might, 
While each conceit an ugly figure wears 

Which were not evil viewed in reason's light. 
Our ovvly eyes which dimmed with passions be, 

And scarce discern the dawn of coming day, 
Let them be cleared and now begin to see 



Il6 THE SONNET 

Our life is but a step in dusty way. 
Then let us hold the bliss of peaceful mind, 
Since this we feel, great loss we cannot find. 

— From the Arcadia. 

Edmund Spenser wrote a large number of son- 
nets, most of which are addressed to his lady and 
entitled Ammoretti. He wrote the three-quat- 
rain form with closing couplet, but devised the 
plan of linking the quatrains together by a common 
rhyme ending, his scheme being abab, bcbc, cdcd 
ee, thus making a metrical unit of twelve lines, 
followed by a unit of two lines, an arrangement 
not much superior in melodic effect to three quat- 
rains and a couplet. His thought construction, 
however, almost invariably is paragraphed into 
eight lines and six. The form he invented is even 
more artificial and quite as hard to compose as the 
pure Italian, since it requires four rhymes on each 
of two terminals. Many of his sonnets are ex- 
tremely beautiful in language and thought. 

One day I wrote her name upon the strand, 

But came the waves and washed it away ; 
Again I wrote it with a second hand, 

But came the tide and made my pains his prey. 

" Vain man," said she, " that dost in vain assay 
A mortal thing so to immortalize ; 

For I myself shall like to this decay, 
And eke my name be wiped out likewise." 
" Not so," quoth I ; " let baser things devise 

To die in dust, but you shall live by fame ; 



THE SONNET I I 7 

My verse your virtues rare shall eternize, 

And in the heavens write your glorious name, 
Where whenas death shall all the world subdue, 
Our loves shall live, and later life renew." 

A sonnet by Sir Walter Raleigh shows that even 
men of action wrote sonnets in the " spacious times 
of great Elizabeth." In a very magnificent manner 
he dethrones Petrarch and Homer in favor of his 
friend Edmund Spenser, with perhaps a secondary 
implied compliment to Queen Elizabeth whom her 
loyal subjects typified in the Faerie Queene. 

Methought I saw the grave where Laura lay, 

Within that temple where the vestal flame 
Was wont to burn, and passing by that way 

To see that buried dust of living fame, 
Whose tomb fair love and fairer virtue kept, 

All suddenly I saw the Faery Queen ; 
At whose approach the soul of Petrarch wept ; 

And from thenceforth those Graces were not seen, 
For they this Queen attended; in whose stead 

Oblivion laid him down on Laura's hearse. 
Hereat the hardest stones were seen to bleed 

And groans of buried ghosts the heavens did pierce ; 
Where Homer's spright did tremble all for grief, 
And cursed the access of that celestial thief. 

This is not a very remarkable sonnet, but a 
better one than any modern politician soldier could 
write. 



Il8 THE SONNET 

Among the numerous sonnets of this period 
those by Drummond, Drayton, and Daniel may be 
instanced. The following by Michael Drayton is 
in every way admirable and illustrates the impor- 
tance of dividing the thought logically at the end 
of the eighth line as Spenser usually does. 

Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part, — 

Nay I have done, you get no more of me 
And I am glad, yea glad with all my heart 

That thus so cleanly I myself can free : 
Shake hands forever ! cancel all our vows, 

And, when we meet at any time again, 
Be it not seen in either of our brows 

That we one jot of former love retain. 

Now at the last gasp of Love's latest breath, 
When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies, 

When P'aith is kneeling by his bed of death, 
And Innocence is closing up his eyes — 

Now if thou would'st, when all have given him over, 

From death to life thou might'st him yet recover. 

The genius of the dramatic poet, William Shake- 
speare, took up the prevalent philosophical thought 
of the day and molded it into the forms in which 
the writers of his time expressed themselves. As 
early as 1598, Francis Meres in a short literary 
sketch of the period mentions his " suggard son- 
nets among his private friends." Publication was 
a very different matter then from what it is now. 
It was usually effected through the help of a 



THE SONNET I 19 

wealthy or socially powerful noble, a Macaenas, to 
whom the work was dedicated and to whom the 
writer looked for his " honorarium " either in a 
gift of money or an appointment to some salaried 
position in the gift of the patron. Literature re- 
ceived some of the rewards that now go to political 
services. Chaucer was made collector of customs, 
and Spenser secretary to the viceroy of Ireland. 
The two poems Shakespeare wrote for publication 
are dedicated to powerful uoblemen. In 1600, 
printing establishments were beginning to bring 
out small ventures on their own account, plays, 
ballads, and the like in pamphlet form, and to 
this we owe the quarto editions of about half of 
Shakespeare's plays. In 1609, Thomas Thorpe, a 
petty London publisher, got hold of a number of 
manuscript copies of sonnets by the great drama- 
tist. He printed them and prefixed an enigmatical 
dedication, the most enigmatical, indeed, that ever 
prefaced any book : — 

The Sonnets of Shakespear, 

To the 

Onlie begetter of these ensuing Sonnets 

Mr. W. H. 

All happiness 

And that Eternity 

promised by our ever-living poet 

WlSHETH 

the well-wishing adventurer 
In setting forth. 

T. T. 



120 THE SONNET 

" The ever-living poet " is, of course, Shake- 
speare, who in several sonnets predicts immortality 
for the subject of his verse. There seems no 
reason for imagining that W. H. was the person 
to whom the author addressed any of the poems, 
and it cannot reasonably be conjectured who he 
was. The " onlie begetter " must mean collector, 
and not inspirer. W. H. must have gathered in 
some way a number of sonnets by Shakespeare. 
Possibly he had them on loose leaves, possibly in 
manuscript books such as were frequently used in 
that day. They must have been " clean copy," 
for there are very few typographical errors in the 
printed page, which makes a remarkable contrast 
to the folio of Shakespeare's plays. Possibly some 
of them were in the handwriting of the author, 
but he evidently had nothing to do with the publi- 
cation, since the arrangement in groups is very 
imperfect and is partly intelligent and partly for- 
tuitous. The common law at this time gave the 
author no control over his matter after the manu- 
script had left his hands. We have no means of 
knowing how Shakespeare took the (doubtless) 
unauthorized printing of his work, and we can 
only feel thankful to the enterprising and un- 
scrupulous T. T. 

The subject-matter of these sonnets has a wide 
range. The first seventeen are exhortations to a 
young man to marry, since man's life is short and 
the race eternal. A number are on the enduring 



THE SONNET 121 

power of poetry, a theme frequently handled by 
the poets of the day ; others are addressed to a 
powerful patron ; others celebrate love, not neces- 
sarily sexual love, but the affinity between twin 
souls ; others lament the on-coming of age and 
the pathetic transitoriness of things; others are 
addressed to a woman profoundly attractive but 
not faithful, or to the friend who has robbed the 
writer of her affection. Many of them are so 
subjective and lyrical that it seems impossible to 
doubt that they are the rehearsing of a mood 
resulting from personal experience, until we re- 
member that the writer was a great dramatist 
and possessed the power of imagining in all pos- 
sible forms the reaction of external circumstance 
on characters of depth and emotional capacity. 
Wordsworth said of the sonnets " with this key 
Shakespeare unlocked his heart," and Browning 
replied, " Did he ? Then the less Shakespeare 
he." We can deduce no substantial biographical 
experience from verse in which the poet is playing 
on the facts of life with a master hand. 

Throwing out four or five as possibly common- 
place, and admitting that here and there the 
thought is artificial and the expression exagger- 
ated after the fashion of the day, the sonnets of 
Shakespeare constitute a great body of poetry. 
The sonorous volume of sound is in places remark- 
able, but finer, more delicate harmonies run through 
nearly all of the lines. Even in the craggy opening, 



122 THE SONNET 

Let me not to the marriage of true minds 
Admit impediments, 

the m's and the abrupt vowels are like a trumpet 
call, and the beautiful / sequence and the o's and 
a's in the next line, — 

Love is not love 
Which alters when it alteration finds 
Or bends with the remover to remove, 

answer it like a bugle. Nowhere can more beau- 
tiful illustrations of tone-color and of alliteration, 
not in the initial letters of words only but in the 
body and substance of the music, be found. The 
s's followed by ze/'s in the first quatrain of No. 30 
are no more than a fair example, for as a rule the 
music is more subtle : — 

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought 
I summon up remembrance of things past, 

I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, 

And with old woes new wail my dear times' waste. 

The ethical subtlety of the thought, sometimes 
not to be understood without paraphrasing, but 
not to be comprehended except in the original 
form, and the justness of the phrases are no less 
remarkable than the verbal music of the sonnets. 
It is impossible to characterize the ballad better 
than in the line — " The stretched meter of an 
antique song," or the winter forest better than in 
the lines : — 



THE SONNET 123 

. . . those boughs which shake against the cold, 
Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang. 

The images are occasionally of great force and 
suggestiveness, as : — 

Like as the waves make toward the pebbled shore, 
So do our minutes hasten to their end, 

Each changing place with that which goes before, 
In sequent toil all forwards do contend. 

Or,- 

Almost my nature is subdued 
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand. 

It must be confessed that some of Shakespeare's 
sonnets are difficult to understand. They deal 
with very perplexing and obscure matters. They 
prove, however, that the sonnet's " scanty plot of 
ground," of whose limits Wordsworth complained, 
was broad enough for the intimate expression of 
a great poet. The first of those subjoined is the 
very apotheosis of the self-abnegation of spiritual 
love. The second, written as it was by a man in 
the prime of life, disproves the autobiographic 
theory. 

No longer mourn for me when I am dead 
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell 

Give warning to the world that I am fled 

From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell. 

Nay, if you read this line remember not 
The hand that writ it ; for I love you so 



124 THE SONNET 

That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot 
If thinking on me then should make you woe. 

O ! if — I say — you look upon this verse 
When I perhaps compounded am with clay 

Do not so much as my poor name rehearse 
But let your love even with my life decay. 

Lest the wise world should look into your moan, 

And mock you with me after I am gone. 

That time of year thou mayst in me behold 

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang 
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, 

Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang. 
In me thou seest the twilight of such day 

As after sunset fadeth in the west, 
Which by and by black night doth take away, 

Death's second self that seals up ail in rest. 
In me thou seest the glowing of such fire 

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, 
As the death-bed whereon it must expire, 

Consumed with that which it was nourished by. 
This thou perceivest which makes thy love more strong 
To love that well which thou must leave ere long. 

John Milton wrote but seventeen sonnets. His 
knowledge of Italian literature prompted him to 
use the pure Italian rhyme scheme, but usually 
he disregarded the rule to make the divisions of 
the thought correspond to the metrical divisions. 
His sonnets are the work of a finished artist, and we 
cannot but regret that he did not find more leisure 
hours, when he was busily engaged as Latin secre- 



THE SONNET 125 

tary to the council and chief pamphlet writer for 
the Commonwealth, for his true work, poetry. 
One of the following illustrates his vigorous parti- 
sanship, and the other his love for social and 
literary companionship. 

On the Detraction which followed my Writing 
Certain Treatises 

I did but prompt the age to quit their clogs 

By the known rules of ancient liberty, 

When straight a barbarous noise environs me 
Of owls and cuckoos, asses, apes, and dogs ; 
As when those hinds that were transformed to frogs 

Railed at Latona's twin-born progeny, 

Which after held the sun and moon in fee. 
But this is got by casting pearl to hogs, 
That bawl for freedom in their senseless mood, 

And still revolt when truth would set them free. 

License they mean when they cry liberty ; 
For who loves that must first be wise and good, 

But from that mark how far they rove we see, 
For all this waste of wealth and loss of blood. 

To Mr. Lawrence 

Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son, 

Now that the fields are dank and ways are mire, 
Where shall we sometimes meet and by the fire 
Help waste a sullen day, what may be won 
From the hard season gaining? Time will run 
On smoother, till Favonius reinspire 
The frozen earth and clothe in fresh attire 



126 THE SONNET 

The lily and rose, that neither sowed nor spun. 
What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice, 

Of Attic taste, with wine, whence we may rise 
To hear the lute well touched, or artful voice 
Warble immortal notes and Tuscan air? 
He who of these delights can judge, and spare 

To interpose them oft, is not unwise. 

The resemblance to an ode of Horace is evident. 

Milton died in 1674, and for a century thereafter 
no sonnets were written. Neither the brilliant per- 
siflage of the Restoration nor the serious undertone 
of the eighteenth century nor its dignified classical 
culture were favorable to the production of deli- 
cate and highly artificial forms of art. Dr. John- 
son compared Milton's work on sonnets to that 
of a man who " carved heads on cherry-stones." 
Toward the end of the century Thomas Gray (1716 
-1 771), whose conception of art and culture was 
much finer than that of Dr. Johnson and the pre- 
vailing school of writers, wrote sonnets. His ex- 
ample was followed by Thomas Warton (1728- 
1790), professor of poetry at Oxford, and by Anna 
Seward (1 747-1 809), a lady of graceful literary 
powers. William Lisle Bowles (1762-1850) wrote 
a number which attracted the attention of Cole- 
ridge (1772-1834). Younger writers were excited 
with the idea that verse should be more varied, 
natural, and musical than that of the stately eight- 
eenth-century school, and the publication of the 
ancient ballads has widened their conception of the 



THE SONNET 127 

function of poetry. Coleridge wrote a few sonnets, 
but he never hit on the true melodic sonnet wave. 
Wordsworth, however, took up the sonnet form 
with a fuller comprehension of its nature. He 
wrote over four hundred sonnets, and though his 
fatal facility of rhyming makes some of them 
commonplace, a number are so distinguished by 
limpidity as to rank among the finest specimens in 
the language. He was no doubt profoundly influ- 
enced by Milton. In most instances he follows 
pretty closely the pure Italian form, and he must 
be held to have given the sonnet its great vogue in 
the nineteenth century. Following the example of 
the sixteenth-century poets, he composed several 
"sonnet sequences," the most important of which 
is that on the ecclesiastical history of England 
entitled Ecclesiastical Sketches, one hundred and 
fourteen in number. Another series, of thirty-four 
has for a subject various aspects of the River 
Duddon in Westmoreland, and another, a trip to 
Scotland. Sonnets written in such numbers can 
hardly avoid a mechanical, professional tone. 
Among the best known of Wordsworth's sonnets 
are the one written on Westminster Bridge, already 
cited, the one on Milton, and the one beginning 
"The world is too much with us"; the ones on 
Venice, on Toussaint L'Ouverture, and on a "calm 
evening," but many others are far above mediocrity. 
In diction all are simple and transparent, and some 
of the phrases are of admirable force and beauty. 



128 THE SONNET 



Venice 



Once did She hold the gorgeous East in fee, 

And was the safeguard of the West ; the worth 

Of Venice did not fall below her birth ; 
Venice the eldest child of Liberty. 
She was a maiden city, bright and free ; 

No guile seduced, no force could violate ; 

And when she took unto herself a mate 
She must espouse the Everlasting Sea. 
And what if she had seen those glories fade, 

Those titles vanish and that strength decay, 
Yet shall some tribute of regret be paid 

When her long life hath reached its final day : 
Men are we and must grieve when even the shade 

Of that which once was great is passed away. 

Milton 

Milton ! thou shouldst be living at this hour ; 

England hath need of thee : she is a fen 

Of stagnant waters : altar, sword, and pen, 
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, 
Have forfeited their ancient English dower 

Of inward happiness. We are selfish men ; 

Oh, raise us up, return to us again ; 
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. 
Thy soul was like a star and dwelt apart ; 

Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea ; 

Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, 
So didst thou travel on life's common way 
In cheerful godliness ; and yet thy heart 
The lowliest duties on herself did lay. 



THE SONNET 129 

King's College Chapel, Cambridge 

Tax not the royal saint with vain expense ; 

With ill-matched aims, the architect who planned — 

Albeit laboring for a scanty band 
Of white-robed scholars only, — this immense 
And glorious work of fine intelligence. 

Give all thou canst ; high Heaven rejects the lore 

Of nicely calculated less or more ; 
So deemed the man who fashioned for the sense 
These lofty pillars, spread that branching roof 

Self-poised and scooped into ten thousand cells 

Where light and shade repose, where music dwells 
Lingering, and wandering on as loth to die ; 
Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof 
That they were born for immortality. 

— Ecclesiastical Sketches. 

Places of Worship 

As star that shines dependent upon star 

Is to the sky while we look up in love ; 

As to the deep, fair ships, which, though they move, 
Seem fixed to eyes that watch them from afar ; 
As to the sandy desert fountains are, 

With palm groves shaded at wide intervals, 

Whose fruit around the sun-burnt native falls, 
Of roving tired or desultory war ; 
Such to this British isle her Christian fanes, 

Each linked to each for kindred services ; 
Her spires, her steeple-towers with glittering vanes 

Far-kenned, her chapels lurking among trees 

FORMS OF ENG. POETRY — Q 



130 THE SONNET 

Where a few villagers on bended knees 
Find solace which a busy world disdains. 

— Ecclesiastical Sketches. 

It will be observed that Wordsworth very rarely 
closes the sonnet with a couplet and that he occa- 
sionally inserts an extra rhyme into the octave as in 
three of those quoted. He observes the thought 
division in more than half of his sonnets as in all of 
the above. The thought division is evidently more 
important than the metrical requirement, but few 
will be inclined to find fault with the sonnet on 
Kings College Chapel though it contains both 
defects : the second rhyme is not carried through 
the octave, and the logical division falls at the end 
of the fifth line. Technical rules are relaxed for 
those whose abilities are not limited to obedience. 

Among Wordsworth's immediate successors, 
Byron and Shelley made few essays in the sonnet 
although masters of the Spenserian stanza, a form 
kindred to it. That their vigorous and generous 
sentiments would not have been cramped by its 
formality is shown by Byron's sonnet on Chillon : — 

Eternal spirit of the chainless mind, 

Brightest in dungeons, Liberty, thou art, 
For there thy habitation is the heart, 

The heart which love of thee alone can bind ; 

And when thy sons to fetters are consigned, — 
To fetters and the damp vault's dayless gloom, 
Their country conquers with their martyrdom, 

And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind. 



THE SONNET 131 

Chillon ; thy prison is a holy place, 

And thy sad floor an altar,, for 'twas trod. 

Until his very steps have left a trace 

Worn as if thy cold pavement were a sod 

By Bonnivard ! May none those marks efface, 
For they appeal from tyranny to God. 

Shelley's fourteen-line poem, Ozymandias, vio- 
lates all the laws of the sonnet except the first. 
It contains a magnificent imasfe, but on reading it, 
the fall of the rhymes will be found disappointing, 
showing that there is something absolute in the 
regular form. 

Ozymandias 

I met a traveler from an antique land 

Who said. " Two vast and trunkless legs of stone 
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand 

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies whose frown 
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command 

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read 
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, 

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed ; 
And on the pedestal these words appear : 

1 My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings ; 
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair ! ' 

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay 
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, 

The lone and level sands stretch far away." 

John Keats had all the requirements of a sonnet 
writer : passionate love of melody and beauty, a 
sense of form which strengthened with each sue- 



132 THE SONNET 

cessive production, and the power of striking out 
the fitting and suggestive phrase which grips the 
reader and seems something absolute and final. 
His sonnets must be regarded as preludes to a life 
work which his genius was not allowed to finish. 
The first of the two following is evidently youthful 
work : — 

Written on the Day Mr. Leigh Hunt left Prison 

What though for showing truth to flattered state 
Kind Hunt was shut in prison, yet has he 
In his immortal spirit been as free 

As the sky-searching lark, and as elate. 

Minion of grandeur ! think you he did wait ? 
Think you he naught but prison walls did see 
Till so unwilling thou unturnd'st the key ? 

Ah no ! far happier, nobler was his fate ! 

In Spenser's halls he strayed, and bowers fair, 
Culling enchanted flowers ; and he flew 

With daring Milton through the fields of air ; 
To regions of his own his genius true 

Took happy flights. Who shall his fame impair 
When thou art dead and all thy wretched crew ? 

How many bards gild the lapses of time ! 
A few of them have ever been the food 
Of my delighted fancy — I could brood 

Over their beauties, earthly or sublime ; 

And often when I sit me down to rhyme, 

These will in throngs before my mind intrude, 



THE SONNET 133 

But no confusion, no disturbance rude 
Do they occasion ; 'tis a pleasing chime. 

So the unnumbered sounds that evening store, 

The song of birds, — the whispering of the leaves, 
The voice of waters — the great bell that heaves 

With solemn sound — and thousand others more, 
That distance of recognisance bereaves, 

Make pleasing music and not wild uproar. 

The first line of the last of the two is not a son- 
net line, and at least two others are harsh. It is 
not enough that all contain ten syllables. 

Robert Browning and Alfred Tennyson wrote 
very few sonnets. Both liked to compose on a 
larger scale than its limits permit, possibly they 
did not like the restraint it imposes ; at all events 
when they cut cameos they originated the pattern. 
Both were lyrical poets, and the sonnet is a fitter 
embodiment of reflection than of subjective emotion. 
Still, Mrs. Browning is as decidedly lyrical as are 
the two great poets of the nineteenth century and 
she used the sonnet form for the outpouring of per- 
sonal feeling. Mr. Stedman says ( Victorian Poets, 
p. 137): "I am disposed to consider the Sonnets 
from the Portuguese as, if not the finest, a portion 
of the finest subjective poetry in our literature. 
Their form reminds one of an English prototype, 
and it is no sacrilege to say that their music is 
showered from a higher and purer atmosphere 
than that of the ' Swan of Avon.' " Mrs. Brown- 



134 THE SONNET 

ing used the expression "From the Portuguese" to 
disguise, as if translations, the poems in which she 
embodied the exalted mood of a refined woman to 
whom the passion of love came for the first time 
after youth was past. The passion is so pure that 
it seems disembodied. It is of the soul, ecstatic, 
or standing out of the body. The range of emotion 
of these sonnets is limited and feminine. Not only 
does Shakespeare cover a wider scope of sentiment 
in his love sonnets, but he stands on the border be- 
tween the two worlds of sense and spirit as man 
does, and in consequence his sentiment is juster 
and more universal. The ethereal medium of the 
ideal world may be "purer" than the sin-laden 
atmosphere of reality in one sense and "higher" 
in one sense, but the clouds and storms of this 
earth are to us of more interest than the serener 
sky of an imagined heaven, and properer subjects 
of art. Having said this, we admit the spiritual 
and artistic beauty of Mrs. Browning's sonnets and 
that they are showered from an atmosphere "higher 
and purer in the conventional sense" than those of 
the " Swan of Avon." She herself would have 
been the last to claim for them the reach, elevation, 
and insight or the phrase power of the Shake- 
spearean sonnets. 

The Sonnets from the Portuguese number forty- 
four. The sonnets of Mrs. Browning are almost 
invariably subjective and many of them are marked 
by a profound religious feeling. Technically, Mrs. 



THE SONNET 1 35 

Browning was a careless artist, or, rather, she cared 
for expression more than for form. She does not 
regard the division between the octave and the sex- 
tette sufficiently to bring out the full beauty of the 
sonnet structure, nor will she ever reject a rhyme 
because it is imperfect. The beauty of her poetry 
is largely phrasal and rhythmical, and, in the fuller 
but not in the formal sense, structural. Of the 
Sonnets from the Portuguese perhaps the most char- 
acteristic one is the twenty-second : — 

When our two souls stand up erect and strong, 
Face to face, silent ; drawing nigh and nigher, 
Until the lengthening wings break into fire 

At either curved point — what bitter wrong 

Can the earth do to us that we should not long 

Be here contented ? Think ! In mounting higher 
The angels would press on us and aspire 

To drop some golden orb of perfect song 

Into our deep, dear silence. Let us stay 
Rather on Earth, Beloved, — where the unfit 

Contrarious moods of men recoil away 
And isolate pure spirits, and permit 

A place to stand and love in for a day 

With darkness and the death-hour rounding it. 

The close of this is undoubtedly very beautiful, 
and the tone of the poem is spiritual and elevated. 

Of the other sonnets of Mrs. Browning, some 
thirty in number, we transcribe as an example of 
her religious sentiment, the one entitled the Two 
Sayings : — 



I36 THE SONNET 

Two sayings of the Holy Scriptures beat 

Like pulses in the Church's brow and breast ; 

And by them we find rest in our unrest, 
And heart deep in salt tears do yet entreat 
God's fellowship as if on Heavenly seat. 

The first is " Jesus wept," — whereon is prest 

Full many a sobbing face, that drops its best 
And sweetest waters on the record sweet : — 
And one is where the Christ, denied and scorned, 

"Looked upon Peter." Oh, to render plain 
By help of having loved a little and mourned 

That look of sovran love and sovran pain 
Which He who could not sin, yet suffered, turned 

On him who could reject but not sustain. 

The poet-painter, Dante Gabriel Rossett| wrote 
one hundred and fifty sonnets. As he was quite as 
much at home in the Italian language and literature 
as in English, and was, in common with his friends 
of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, enthusiastic 
over the art of the thirteenth and fourteenth cen- 
turies, it was natural that he should cultivate the 
measures of Dante and Petrarch. He obeys the 
Italian rules, making, except in one instance, a full 
stop at the end of the eighth line and separating the 
octave and the sextette by a space on the page. 
Often he obeys the subordinate rule to divide the 
octave into two quatrains and the sextette into two 
terzettes by a period. He never closes a sonnet 
with a couplet. Painstaking, loving workmanship as 
if on the cutting of a gem is evident in the phrasing. 



THE SONNET 1 37 

A sequence of one hundred is called House of 
Life. A number of these written in a small parch- 
ment book were buried with his young wife, who 
had been their inspiration, and seven years later ex- 
humed with his consent. In these the conception 
of the passion of love is marked by spiritual inten- 
sity colored by an artistic deification of the human 
form. They are like nothing else in English liter- 
ature. They are poems of a mood not altogether 
germane to the Anglo-Saxon mind ; infinity, mys- 
tery, and eternity are nobly and poetically conceived, 
but in a way to which we are unaccustomed. The 
presentation would have appealed more readily to 
Dante and his circle than it does to us. 

Of the other sonnets of this poet many refer to 
pictures. Indeed, the standpoint of the pictorial 
artist is evident in all of Rossetti's work, but it is 
usually that of the artist interested in humanity as 
it existed seven centuries ago and especially as it 
was reflected in minds of an exalted and mystical 
type. Unless we know something of the picture 
referred to we must construct an image of it from 
the sonnet and then interpret the sonnet from our 
image of the picture. Combined with remoteness 
in the allusions, delicacy in the thought connections, 
and obscurity in the style, this reference to an un- 
known painting makes some of Rossetti's sonnets 
obscure. They are always beautiful and remotely 
suggestive, some of the images and phrases are of 
great power and the music is a strain of peremptory 



I38 THE SONNET 

sonorousness that emphasizes the loftiness of the 
idea. The following magnificent one is incompre- 
hensible without a visual image of the picture in 
question. The first three lines are unsurpassable. 

For " Our Lady of the Rocks " 
(by Leonardo da Vinci) 

Mother, is this the darkness of the end, 

The Shadow of Death ? and is that outer sea 
Infinite, imminent eternity ? 

And does the death-pang by man's seed sustained 

In Time's each instant cause thy face to bend 
Its silent prayer upon the Son, while he 
Blesses the dead with his hand silently, 

To His long day which hours no more offend ? 

Mother of grace, the pass is difficult, 

Keen as these rocks, and the bewildered souls 

Throng it like echoes blindly shuddering through. 
Thy name, O Lord, each spirit's voice extols 

Whose peace abides in the dark avenue 

Amid the bitterness of things occult. 

The Birth Bond 

Have you not noted in some family 

Where two were born of a first marriage bed, 
How still they own their gracious bond though fed 

And nursed on the forgotten breast and knee ? 

How to their father's children they shall be 
In act and thought of one good will ; but each 



THE SONNET 1 39 

Shall for the other have in silence, speech, 
And in a word, complete community. 

Even so when first I saw you seemed it love, 
That among souls allied to mine was yet 

One nearer kindred than life hinted of. 

O born with me somewhere that men forget, 
And though for years of sight and sound unmet, 

Known for my soul's birth partner well enough ! 

— House of Life. 

Both of these are weakened by the closing 
line, and the second is one of the very rare in- 
stances when Rossetti uses the third rhyme in the 
octave. 

The Dark Glass 

Not I myself know all my love for thee : 

How should I reach so far, who cannot weigh 
To-morrow's dower by gage of yesterday ? 

Shall birth and death and all dark names that be 

As doors and windows bared to some loud sea 
Lash deaf mine ears and blind my face with spray ; 
And shall my sense pierce love, — the last relay 

And ultimate outpost of Eternity ? 

Lo ! what am I to love, the lord of all ? 

One murmuring shell he gathers from the sand, 
One little heart-flame sheltered in his hand. 
Yet through thine eyes he grants me clearest call 
And veriest touch of powers primordial 
That any hour-girt life may understand. 

— House of Life. 



140 THE SONNET 

The following sonnet will repay study, and the 
close of the octave is an example of Rossetti's 
occasional great phrasal power. 

Think and Act 

Think thou and act ; to-morrow thou shalt die. 
Outstretched in the sun's warmth upon the shore 
Thou sayst, " Man's measured path is all gone o'er; 

Up all his years, steeply, with strain and sigh 

Man clomb until he touched the truth ; and I 
Even I am he whom it was destined for." 
How should this be ? Art thou then so much more 

Than they who sowed that thou shouldst reap thereby ? 

Nay, come up hither. From this wave-washed mound 
Unto the furthest flood-brim look with me ; 

Then reach on with thy thought till it be drowned, 
Miles and miles distant though the last line be, 

And though thy soul sail leagues and leagues beyond, 
Still, leagues beyond those leagues there is more sea. 

The implied contrast between the man comfort- 
able at the sea-level of thought, who thinks that 
the present is the heir of the past and has reached 
the absolute goal, and so takes his ease, and the 
speaker, who from a slight eminence looks out on 
the illimitable area of the future soul development 
of the race, is of far-reaching significance. In 
the following the evil effect of the growth of mod- 
ern individualism in chilling generous sentiment is 



THE SONNET I4I 

forcibly presented, far more so than it could be in 
a prose essay : — 

On Refusal of Aid between Nations 

Not that the earth is changing, O my God ! 
Not that the seasons totter in their walk — 
Not that the virulent ill of act and talk 

Seethes ever as a wine press ever trod — 

Not therefore are we certain that the rod 

Weighs in thine hand to smite thy world ; though now 
Beneath thine hand so many nations bow, 

So many kings : — not therefore, O my God ! 

But because Man is parceled out in men 
To-day ; because for any wrongful blow 
No man not stricken asks, " I would be told 

Why thou dost this ; " but this heart whispers then, 
" He is he, I am I." By this we'know 
That our earth falls asunder, being old. 

In our country the sonnet has been since the 
beginning of the nineteenth century one of the 
recognized forms for the poetry of reflection. 
Longfellow wrote less than fifty, all of them 
marked by artistic finish and grace rather than by 
passionate energy. In construction and thought 
they are easily comprehensible like those of 
Wordsworth, not involved and allusive like those 
of Rossetti. Those entitled Three Friends of 
Mine overflow with manly tenderness and are 
perfect in sentiment and expression. 



142 THE SONNET 



To Agassiz 



I stand again on the familiar shore 

And hear the waves of the distracted sea 
Piteously calling and lamenting thee, 

And waiting restless at thy cottage door. 

The rocks, the seaweed on the ocean floor, 
The willows in the meadow, and the free 
Wild winds of the Atlantic welcome me ; 

Then why shouldst thou be dead and come no more ? 

Ah, why shouldst thou be dead when common men 

Are busy with their trivial affairs, 

Having and holding ? Why, when thou hadst read 
Nature's mysterious manuscript, and then 

Wast ready to reveal the truth it bears, 

Why art thou silent ? Why shouldst thou be dead ? 

The following, too, beautifully embodies emo- 
tion which lies within the experience of every 
one : — 

The Nameless Grave 

A soldier of the Union mustered out, 
Is the inscription on an unknown grave 
At Newport News beside the salt-sea wave, 

Nameless and dateless ; sentinel or scout 

Shot down in skirmish, or disastrous rout 
Of battle, when the loud artillery drave 
Its iron wedges through the ranks of brave 

And doomed battalions storming the redoubt. 

Thou unknown hero sleeping by the sea 
In thy forgotten grave ; with secret shame 



THE SONNET 143 

I feel my pulses beat, my forehead burn 
When I remember thou hast given for me 
All that thou hadst, thy life, thy very name, 
And I can give thee nothing in return. 

Among those of more recent writers the sonnets 
of Edith Thomas, Emma Lazarus, and Lloyd Mifflin 
are especially noteworthy. There are many other 
sporadic sonnets of admirable quality scattered here 
and there in our literature. The few of Parsons make 
us regret that the author did not more frequently 
essay this difficult form. The modern tendency to 
avoid sonorousness and volume of sound, to repress 
the force of the accent beat in any one line, to 
reduce poetic diction to the simplicity of prose, 
and to keep emotional expression within decorous, 
conventional bounds seems to prevent the produc- 
tion of sonnets of the highest class. The sonnet 
is well adapted to the presentation of two related 
thoughts, whether the relation be that of contrast 
or of parallelism, but it is so short that the body 
of thought must be very condensed and striking, 
lucidly presented and yet of far-reaching sugges- 
tiveness. The technical difficulties of the form 
are also very great, which, indeed, makes the per- 
fect ones the more satisfying. Sonnet beauty 
depends on symmetry and asymmetry both, for 
the parts are unequal in length and different in 
form and melody. In this it resembles things of 
organic beauty as opposed to things of geometric 



144 THE SONNET 

beauty. It involves the principle of balanced yet 
dissimilar masses, of formality and freedom, like a 
tree which has developed under the rigorous law 
of its growth and yet is shaped by the chance 
of wind and sunshine into something individual. 
The sonnet form could not have endured the test 
of time for so many years did it not embody some 
of the underlying principles of beauty. 

The following sonnets on the sonnet will show 
how it has been regarded by three poets : — 

Scorn not the sonnet ; Critic, you have frowned 
Mindless of its just honors ; with this key 
Shakespeare unlocked his heart ; the melody 

Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound ; 

A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound ; 
With it Camoens soothed an exile's grief ; 
The sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf 

Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned 

His visionary brow ; a glow-worm lamp 

It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land 

To struggle through dark ways ; and when a damp 
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand 

The thing became a trumpet, whence he blew 

Soul-animating strains — alas too few. 

— Wordsworth. 

A sonnet is a moment's monument, — 

Memorial from the soul's eternity 

To one dead deathless hour. Look that it be 

Whether for lustral rite or dire portent 

Of its own arduous fullness reverent ; 



THE SONNET 145 

Carve it in ivory or in ebony 
As Day or Night may rule ; and let Time see 
Its flowering crest impearled and orient. 

A sonnet is a coin : its face reveals 

The soul — its converse to what Power 'tis due, 
Whether for tribute to the august appeals 

Of Life, or dower in Love's high retinue, 
It serve ; or mid the dark wharf's cavernous breath, 
In Charon's palm it pay the toll to death. 

— Rossetti. 
The Sonnet's Voice 

Yon silvery billows breaking on the beach 

Fall back in foam beneath the star-shine clear, 
The while my rhymes are murmuring in your ear 

A restless lore like that the billows teach ; 

For on these sonnet-waves my soul would reach 
From its own depths, and rest within you, dear, 
As, through the billowy voices yearning here, 

Great nature strives to find a human speech. 

A sonnet is a wave of melody ; 

From heaving waters of the impassioned soul 
A billow of tidal music one and whole 

Flows in the "octave," then returning free 
Its ebbing surges in the " sestet " roll 

Back to the deeps of life's tumultuous sea. 

— Theodore Watts. 

Books on the Sonnet: Book of the Sonnet, 2 vols., Leigh 
Hunt; Sonnets of the Century, with critical introduction by William 
Sharp; Three Hundred English Sonnets, D. M. Mann; A Treasury 
of Sonnets, D. M. Mann. 

FORMS OF ENG. POETRY — IO 



CHAPTER IV 

THE ODE 

The ballad is a popular form, a medieval herit- 
age ; the sonnet belongs to the poetry of culture, 
is of Italian origin, and a part of the fruit of the 
English renaissance of the sixteenth century. The 
English ode though having also an Italian root is 
primarily a revival of a classic form of verse. It 
dates from the seventeenth century though the 
Italian canzone had been used as a model by 
Spenser at a slightly earlier period. The word 
" ode," derived from the Greek word meaning a 
song, has something of the indefinite range of 
meaning that attaches to the word "ballad." It 
covers : first, lyrics of some dignity and length 
intended to be sung by a trained chorus, like 
Dryden's Ode on St. Cecilia's Day, and Alexanders 
Feast, or Sidney Lanier's ode on the opening of 
the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia ; second, 
poems read at some important occasion but not 
intended to be sung, like Lowell's Commemoration 
Ode ; third, poems intended to be read in private, 
like Wordsworth's Ode to Duty, or Keats's Ode to 
a Nightingale. We also speak habitually of the 

146 



THE ODE 147 

Odes of Horace, though his Carmina, with the 
exception of the Carmen Seculare, were not written 
for a chorus of singers and are largely of the na- 
ture of society verse. In the same way we speak 
of the Odes of Anacreon, though these are clearly 
songs and intended for the single voice. Taking 
these two last usages as exceptional and tradi- 
tional, there are nevertheless some common charac- 
teristics in the three first mentioned classes. Mr. 
Gosse says {English Odes, Introduction, p. 12), 
" We take as an ode any strain of enthusiastic 
arid exalted lyrical verse, directed to a fixed pur- 
pose and dealing progressively with one dignified 
theme." The definition, though wordy and not 
insisting on any one mark as absolutely requisite, 
is perhaps as good a one as can be found, though 
it would seem to apply to good odes rather than to 
the species in general. It leaves the question open 
whether some of the requirements cannot be want- 
ing and yet the production fall within the cate- 
gory, and it does not notice the specialized uses of 
the word, as in the " Horatian ode." But it will 
aid us in forming, from the examination of speci- 
mens, a conception of the content of the Jerm and 
of the difference between its generalized and its 
specialized uses. 

The ode, then, deals with a " theme." It is not 
narration, but poetical exposition, and if some nar- 
rative is found in it, the story serves as the basis 
for exhortation or reflection ; it is not brought in for 



I48 THE ODE 

its proper interest. The theme is "dignified," 
therefore the tone is serious. It deals " progress- 
ively," therefore an ode must have some extension, 
otherwise it is a song or a bit of verse. It is a 
"strain," therefore a lyrical unity not made up of 
chapters on different parts of the theme and not 
of excessive length. It is "exalted" and "enthu- 
siastic," not didactic — a poetic oration rather 
than an essay in verse. It is " lyrical " ; that 
is, adapted to singing or oral recitation. It is 
" directed to a fixed purpose," not made of wander- 
ing or semi-detached reflections. All the essential 
characteristics are summed up when we say that 
an ode is a dignified lyric of some length. The 
elegy or funeral ode must be excluded unless the 
treatment is encomiastic, not elegiac. Tennyson's 
Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington 
is encomiastic. Laments cannot well be enthusi- 
astic, and funeral odes, if laments, come under 
the head of threnodies or dirges. Gray's Elegy 
written in a Country Churchyard would be excluded 
from the list of odes as general reflections, de- 
pressed rather than "exalted," on the transitori- 
ness of things, and as not lyrical in tone. A poet 
has a right to assign his production to any class he 
likes, otherwise we might doubt whether Keats's 
beautiful Ode on a Grecian Urn was not too re- 
flective and pathetic for a true ode. It has too 
much the romantic color. Wordsworth's ode on 
the Intimations of Immortality is " exalted," and is 



THE ODE 149 

rightly termed an ode because it appeals to a gen- 
eral sentiment of the human race, and not to so 
delicate a development of our psychical organism 
as does the ode of Keats. There should be some 
massiveness and robustness of thought to merit 
treatment in an ode. 

As said before, the Greeks called all lyric poems 
odes, and included in the term poems as different 
as the drinking songs of Anacreon and the love 
songs of Sappho on the one hand, and on the other 
the enthusiastic choral compositions of Pindar 
written to celebrate the victory of some athlete in 
the national games. It is the general form and 
spirit of these last which have determined the char- 
acter of the modern ode. Nevertheless, the Italians 
of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries devel- 
oped a form of verse consisting of several stanzas of 
considerable length — at least eleven lines — with 
lines of different numbers of feet arranged as to 
rhymes and position according to a formula varying 
in different poems but uniform for each one. This 
was called a canzone or ode. Italian literary art 
was much admired by English writers in the six- 
teenth century, — we have already seen how the son- 
net form was imported by Surrey and Wyatt, — and 
the Italian ode or canzone has been one of the 
determining influences in the development of the 
English ode, an earlier though less powerful one 
than the Pindaric ode. Spenser's Epithalamion or 
marriage hymn is in twenty-three stanzas mostly of 



150 THE ODE 

sixteen or seventeen lines each with a refrain of two 
lines. A short envoi or stanza of seven lines closes 
the poem. The stanzas are all on nearly the same 
model, and in this and the presence of the refrain 
the poem is un-Pindaric in form. It is full of the 
fervor of the early Renaissance and must be re- 
ferred partly to Latin and partly to Italian originals. 
This ode, the first in the English language, was 
unequaled among marriage hymns in beauty and 
delicacy of expression till Tennyson wrote the 
marriage song in In Memoriam. The eleventh 
and two following stanzas give an idea of the form 
and lyrical quality of the whole. Very great 
technical skill is implied in making so complicated 
a meter seem unaffected. 

XI 

But if ye saw that which no eyes can see, 
The inward beauty of her lively spright 

Garnisht with heavenly gifts of high degree, 
Much more then would ye wonder at that sight 

And stand astonisht like to those which red 

Medusa's mazeful head. 

There dwells sweet love and constant chastity, 

Unspotted faith and comely womanhood, 

Regard of honor and mild modesty, 

There virtue reigns as queen in royal throne, 

And giveth laws alone, 

The which the base affections do obey, 
And yield their services unto her will ; 

Ne thought of thing uncomely ever may 



THE ODE 151 

Thereto approach to tempt her mind to ill. 
Had ye once seen these, her celestial treasures 
And unrevealed pleasures, 
Then would ye wonder and her praises sing 
That all the woods should answer and your echo ring. 

XII 

Open the temple gates unto my love ; 

Open them wide that she may enter in ; 
And all the posts adorn as doth behove, 

And all the pillars deck with girlands trim, 
For to receive this saint with honor due 
That cometh in to you. 

With trembling steps, and humble reverence, 
She cometh in before th' Almighty's view. 
Of her, ye virgins, learn obedience, 
Whenso ye come into those holy places, 
To humble your proud faces. 
Bring her up to th' high altar, that she may 

The sacred ceremonies there partake 

The which do endless matrimony make ; 
And let the roaring organs loudly play 
The praises of the Lord in lively notes 
The whiles with hollow throats. 
The choristers the joyous anthem sing, 
That all the woods may answer and their echo ring. 

XIII 

Behold while she before the altar stands, 
Hearing the holy priest that to her speaks, 

And blesseth her with his two happy hands, 
How the red roses flush up in her cheeks, 



152 THE ODE 

And the pure snow, with goodly vermeil stain, 
Like crimson dyed in grain ; 

That even the angels which continually 
About the sacred altar do remain, 

Forget their service and about her fly, 
Oft peeping in her face, that seems more fair 
The more they on it stare. 
But her sad eyes, still fastened on the ground, 

Are governed with goodly modesty 

That suffers not one look to glance awry, 
Which may let in a little thought unsound. 
Why blush ye, love, to give to me your hand 
The pledge of all our band ? 
Sing, ye sweet angels, Alleluia sing ! 
That all the woods may answer and your echo ring. 

In 1629, Ben Jonson wrote an ode in the Hora- 
tian manner on the failure of his comedy The New 
Inn, which he says was "never played but most 
negligently acted." It is addressed "to himself," 
and is made up of six stanzas of ten lines with adja- 
cent rhymes. It is vigorous and ingeniously con- 
structed, but is hardly long enough, nor is the subject 
of sufficient dignity, to entitle it strictly to the name 
of ode except in the Horatian sense. The first 
stanza runs : — 

To Himself 

Come leave the loathed stage 

And the more loathsome age, 

Where pride and impudence in faction knit, 

Usurp the chair of wit ; 



THE ODE 153 

Indicting and arraigning every day 

Something they call a play. 

Let their fastidious, vain 

Commission of the brain 

Run on and rage, sweat, censure and condemn ; 

They were not made for thee, less thou for them. 



Milton's On the Morning of Christ's Nativity, 
written in his twenty-first year, is rightly an ode by 
reason of its lyrical quality and the elevation of the 
style. It opens with four of the well-known seven- 
line stanzas such as Chaucer uses in Troilus and 
Criseyde. The " Hymn " of twenty-seven eight-line 
stanzas follows. The only fault that can be found 
with it is that it ends rather abruptly. Milton's great 
poem Lycidas might be considered a funeral ode, 
but it is more consonant with the definition we 
have assumed to classify it as a dirge or lament. 
Edmund Waller's Panegyric to the Lord Protector, 
and his verses on King Charles IPs Happy Return 
are entitled by him " Epistles," though the first, at 
least, has some of the characteristics of an ode. 
Andrew Marvel's poem Upon Cromwell 's Return 
from Ireland has sufficient lyrical vigor and ele- 
vation to be called an ode. It contains the well- 
known reference to the execution of Charles I : — 

He nothing common did or mean 
Upon that memorable scene, 
But with his keener eye 
The axe's edge did try ; 



154 THE 0DE 

Nor called the gods with vulgar spite 
To vindicate his helpless right ; 
But bowed his comely head 
Down as upon a bed. 

Up to this time odes had been written in regular 
though complicated stanzas, but with the restora- 
tion a form was introduced which was used exclu- 
sively for half a century, and has ever since had 
great influence on the form of the ode and, through 
it, on minor verse. It originated in a mistaken 
conception of the construction of the Greek ode. 
About the middle of the seventeenth century, the 
scholar, poet, and loyalist, Abraham Cowley, who 
had followed the fortunes of the widow of Charles 
I and her son, afterwards Charles II, in France, 
came across a copy of the odes of the Greek Pindar, 
apparently not divided into the regular stanzas; 
strophe, antistrophe, and epode. At all events, he 
overlooked the fact that he had before him one of the 
most rigorously exact forms of verse ever written. 
Of the first three stanzas in a typical ode of Pindar 
the last is different from the first two in measure 
and rhythm, and corresponds to a different musical 
accompaniment, and in many cases to an intricate 
evolution of the chorus or of separate groups of 
the singers, but in the succeeding groups of three 
the forms of the first are repeated. This com- 
bined dance, singing, and music must have har- 
monized into a beautiful art form now entirely 



THE ODE 155 

lost, though sometimes remotely suggested on the 
operatic stage. Cowley was much impressed with 
the fire and rush of the verse of Pindar, and under- 
took to imitate it in English. He wrote a number 
of odes in what he supposed was the Pindaric 
manner ; that is to say, with stanzas of unequal 
lengths consisting of long and short lines in for- 
tuitous succession, and rhymes where they con- 
veniently fell. This constitutes the irregular form 
which has been mentioned before. Absolute simi- 
larity of parts is not necessary to fine poetry, and 
when the lines are varied either in length or rhythm 
so as to increase the force with which the idea is 
borne on the mind, when metrical changes corre- 
spond to and reenforce the thought movement, as 
they do for the most part in Wordsworth's ode on 
the Intimations of Immortality, or Tennyson's Ode 
on the Death of the Duke of Wellington, irregular 
meter is a legitimate and effective form. Again, 
where the phrases are very powerful, formal sym- 
metry may be dispensed with. But it requires a 
very delicate ear like that of Milton or Coleridge 
to modulate lawless or irregular verse, and even 
in Lycidas and Christabel or Kubla Khan the ir- 
regularities are but slight variations from a fixed 
norm. Most verse writers, however, need a for- 
mula to guide them, and find it safest to imitate a 
model which experience has tested, and therefore 
of the hundred or so odes between Cowley and 
Wordsworth written in irregular meter, all but two 



156 THE ODE 

or three are extremely uninteresting and unmusical. 
It is possible, of course, that they would have been 
no less so had they been written in strictest form, 
but then they would at least have been legitimate. 
Cowley is spoken of by Sir John Denham as 
" wearing the garb but not the clothes of the an- 
cients," that is, as catching the spirit but not using 
the form of Pindar, which is precisely what he did 
not do, since he attempted to imitate the form and 
succeeded in hitting neither the form nor the spirit 
of the Greek poet. Sir John says of Cowley that — 

Horace's wit and Virgil's state 
He did not steal but emulate ; 
And when he would like them appear, 
Their garb but not their clothes did wear. 
He not from Rome alone, but Greece, 
Like Jason, brought the golden fleece : 
To him that language — though to none 
Of th' others — as his own was known. 
On a stiff gale — as Flaccus sings 
The Theban swan extends his wings, 
When through th' ethereal cloud he flies ; 
To the same pitch our swan doth rise. 
Old Pindar's flights by him are reached, 
When on that gale his wings are stretched. 

Obituary notices are perhaps not to be taken 
very literally, especially when in verse, but if 
Cowley did " know Greek as his own language," 
it is one of the strangest things in literary history 
that he should have taken finely wrought and pre- 



THE ODE 157 

cisely constructed odes as a model for irregular 
verse. The first of Cowley's " Pindaric " odes is a 
loose translation or imitation of the second Olympic 
ode of his original. 

Queen of all harmonious things, 

Dancing words and speaking strings, 

What god, what hero, wilt thou sing ? 

What happy man to equal glories bring ? 

Begin, begin thy noble choice, 

And let the hills around reflect the image of thy voice, 

Pisa does to Jove belong, 

Jove and Pisa claim thy song. 

The fair first-fruits of war, the Olympic games, 

Alcides offered up to Jove ; 

Alcides, too, thy strings may move, 

But, oh ! What man to join with these can worthy 

prove ? 
Join Theron boldly to their sacred names ; 
Theron, the next honor claims ; 
Theron to no man gives place, 
Is first in Pisa's and in Virtue's race, 
Theron then, and he alone, 
Even his own swift forefathers has outgone. 

The entire ode consists of eleven stanzas ranging 
from thirteen to twenty-two lines in length. But it 
is not so much this asymmetry as the fact that the 
long and short lines do not correspond to any 
change in the emotional stress and produce no legit- 
imate musical effect that renders the poem un- 
poetical. It sounds as if the function of rhyme was 



158 THE ODE 

vastly overestimated by the writer. However, the 
form, or rather the formlessness, was new and be- 
came very popular, partly no doubt because it was 
easy. It is unnecessary to cite the "Pindarique 
odes" of the official poets laureate of the seven- 
teenth and early eighteenth centuries, because they 
are worthless. John Dryden, toward the close of 
the seventeenth century, paraphrased the twenty- 
ninth ode of the first book of Horace in " Pindaric 
verse." His work is less rambling in construction 
than Cowley's and the short lines fall more natu- 
rally in their places. The poem contains, however, 
the extraordinary allusion to Sirius — the Dog 
Star : — 

The sun is in the Lion mounted high, 

The Syrian 'Star 

Barks from afar, 
And with his sultry breath infects the sky. 

Dryden's ode for St. Cecilia's Day is, however, 
an admirable ode and well adapted to be set to 
music. Alexander 's Feast, also, shows that a master 
can produce a unified poem in the irregular form 
and make the divergencies add greatly to the 
musical effect. It is an ode in the fullest sense 
and the first fine poem of considerable length in 
the language n ot written in uniform stanzas. Schol- 
ars soon perceived that the distinguishing charac- 
teristics of the so-called Pindaric ode were not to 
be found in the original. In 1701, William Con- 



THE ODE 159 

greve the dramatist, who had already produced a 
Hymn to St. Cecilia in close imitation of Dryden, 
wrote an ode on the victories of the Duke of Marl- 
borough to which he prefixed a Discourse on the 
Pindaric Ode. He says : " There is nothing more 
frequent among us than a sort of poems intituled 
Pindaric Odes, pretending to be written in imitation 
of the style and manner of Pindar, and yet I do 
not know that there is to this day extant in our 
language one ode contrived after his model. . . . 
There is nothing more regular than the odes of 
Pindar. . . . The liberty which he took in his 
numbers and which has been so misunderstood and 
misapplied by his pretended imitators was only in 
varying the stanzas in different odes, but in each 
particular ode they are ever correspondent one to 
another in their turns, . . . They were sung by a 
chorus, and adapted to the lyre and sometimes to 
the lyre and pipe ; the first was called the strophe, 
from the version or circular motion of the singers 
in that stanza from the right hand to the left. The 
second stanza was called the antistrophe, from 
the controversion of the chorus. . . . The third 
stanza was called the epode, which they sung in 
the middle neither turning to one hand nor the 
other. . . . The poet having made choice of a 
certain number of verses to constitute his strophe 
or first stanza was obliged to observe the same 
in his antistrophe or second stanza, and which 
accordingly agreed, whenever repeated, both in 



l6o THE ODE 

number of verses and quantity of feet ; he was 
then again at liberty to make a new choice for 
his third stanza or epode. . . . Every epode in 
the same ode is eternally the same in measure 
and quantity in respect to itself, as is also 
every strophe and antistrophe in respect to each 
other. . . . However, though there be no neces- 
sity that our triumphal odes should consist of the 
three aforementioned stanzas, yet if the reader can 
observe that the great variation of the numbers in 
the third stanza has a pleasing effect in the ode, I 
cannot see why some use may not be made of Pin- 
dar's example to the great improvement of the 
English ode. . . . There is certainly a pleasure 
in beholding anything that has art and difficulty in 
the contriving, especially if it appears so carefully 
executed that the difficulty does not show itself till 
it is sought for. . . . Nothing can be called beauti- 
ful without proportion. When symmetry and har- 
mony are wanting neither the eye nor the ear can 
be pleased. Therefore, certainly, poetry should 
not be destitute of them ; and of all poetry 
especially the ode, whose end and essence is 
harmony. ... I must beg leave to add that I 
believe those irregular odes of Mr. Cowley may 
have been the principal though innocent cause of 
so many deformed poems since. . . . For my 
own part I frankly own my error in having hith- 
erto miscalled a few irregular stanzas a Pindaric 
ode, and possibly if others, who have been under 



THE ODE l6l 

the same mistake would ingenuously confess the 
truth, they might own that never having consulted 
Pindar himself, they took all his irregularity upon 
trust and finding their account in the great ease 
with which they could produce odes without being 
obliged either to measure or design, remained 
satisfied." 

Congreve wrote the ode of nine stanzas before 
referred to, and another of twelve stanzas with 
strict regard to Pindaric symmetry, but it is diffi- 
cult to see that he has any advantage over Cowley 
except in mechanical regularity. He overlooks 
the fact that irregularity of form in line or stanza 
is justified only if it correspond to change in emo- 
tional excitement so that the meter may reflect the 
sentiment. Since Cowley's time, some great poems 
have been written in irregular stanzas. This is true 
not only of choral odes for great occasions but of 
many shorter poems. The first, indeed, might be 
traced to the influence of the sacred oratorio 
as well as to that of Cowley's mistaken imitations. 
But such irregular odes as Wordsworth's Intima- 
tions of Immortality and Lowell's Commemoration 
Ode must be credited to literary traditions. 

William Collins is a more important figure in the 
history of literature than in literature itself. He 
and Thomas Gray kept alive the traditions of lyri- 
cal verse and romantic treatment in the eighteenth 
century at a period when the trend of poetry was 
toward the academic and scholarly, and away from 

FORMS OF ENG. POETRY — II 



I 62 THE ODE 

the imaginative and musical. His verse, it is true, 
is rather hard and metallic in tone, and his concep- 
tion of an ode was so elastic that he prefixes the 
title to a poem shorter than a sonnet. Some of 
his odes are in regular and some in irregular verse. 
He divides his Ode to Liberty into strophe, epode, 
antistrophe, second epode, using the Greek terms 
without any reference to structural significance. 
His Ode to Evening is in unrhymed quatrains and 
his Passions, an Ode for Music, is in irregular 
rhyme. All of them are addresses and are full of 
vigor. The address implies personification of the 
subject, and, unless the subject is unpretentious as 
in Burns's Field Mouse and Mountain Daisy, com- 
pels the directness and force that is properly char- 
acteristic of the ode. The poems which Collins 
so designates are, therefore, odes in the important 
matter of spirit and tone, though they are so law- 
less in form, and their free and ringing, if rather 
harsh, music is in a remote sense the precursor of 
the odes of the early nineteenth century. The 
odes of his contemporary Akenside, written in 
regular stanzas, one of them in Spenserians, are 
odes in the sense of Horace's Carmina, and most 
of them familiar verse on everyday subjects. One 
is a Remonstrance supposed to have been spoken by 
Shakespeare when Freitch comedians were acting by 
subscription at the Theatre Royal. No subject could 
be more unodelike. 

Thomas Gray, Greek scholar and poet, under- 



THE ODE 163 

stood the meters of Pindar as exactly as any one 
could at that time. In the year 1775, he com- 
pleted an elaborate lyric called The Progress of 
Poesy. This poem consists of nine stanzas divided 
into three groups of three stanzas each, in exact 
imitation of the Pindaric model. The groups are 
all made up of a strophe of twelve lines, an antis- 
trophe of twelve lines, and an epode of seventeen 
lines. The strophes and antistrophes are all identi- 
cal in structure, and the three epodes are also pre- 
cisely alike ; that is, the position of the rhymes and 
the length of corresponding lines are the same in all 
of the three. Both these structures are very com- 
plicated, the general law being that the stanzas, 
especially the epodes, begin with short lines of three 
or four feet, and that the lines increase in length 
towards the close, which is marked by a line of six 
feet. The rhymes are sometimes in couplets and 
sometimes alternate. 

It is evident that very great labor must have 
been expended to produce a poem in so rigid and 
elaborate a form, and it is safe to say that it was 
labor thrown away as far as the naturalization of a 
new verse form was the object. Of course pains- 
taking work even on some literary trifle is never 
entirely thrown away, but Gray's labor on this ode 
and on The Bard, two years later, and still more 
elaborate in structure, did not result in the produc- 
tion of a poem especially delightful to the artistic 
sense. The correspondencies are too far apart to 



164 THE ODE 

be felt as symmetries. The original Grecian ode 
was chanted with the accompaniment of a grace- 
ful and symmetrical dance. Thus the ear aided 
by the eye could take cognizance of and the hearer 
and onlooker receive pleasure from the finely graded 
recurrences of meter, some of which marked inter- 
vals of thirty lines of the song. But the ear alone 
cannot remember coordination separated by so long 
an interval. It gives no pleasure to know that the 
line " Lance to lance and horse to horse " echoes 
the line " Smeared with gore and ghastly pale " 
forty-eight lines before, and is again echoed by the 
line " Gales from blooming Eden bear," forty-eight 
lines after. We cannot perceive the symmetry 
by reading. But if these lines corresponded to the 
recurrence of a striking movement in a dignified, 
stately minuet which accompanied their delivery, 
doubtless their recurrence would arouse an emo- 
tion of the keenest artistic delight. Deprived of 
their handmaids, the choral dance and the music, 
they are poetically valueless as correspondencies. 

Both of these admirable poems are, however, 
odes in the fullest sense. The determinate prog- 
ress of the thought from beginning to end is 
especially noticeable. It is true that the compli- 
cated stanzaic structure is not easily perceived, 
and that the poet labored too hard to attain it, but 
they are sustained and impersonal lyrics on a dig- 
nified subject, at once vigorous and finished. It 
is said that Byron was much influenced by them. 



THE ODE 165 

The first strophe of The Bard is enough to ex- 
emplify the energy which should characterize an 
ode : — 

" Ruin seize thee, ruthless King ! 

Confusion on thy banners wait ; 
Though fanned by Conquest's crimson wing, 

They mock the air with idle state. 
Helm nor hauberk's twisted mail, 
Nor even thy virtues, tyrant, shall avail 
To save thy secret soul from nightly fears, 
From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears 1 " 
Such were the sounds that o'er the crested pride 

Of the first Edward scattered wild dismay, 
As down the steeps of Snowdon's shaggy side 

He wound with toilsome march his long array. 
Stout Gloster stood aghast in speechless trance ; 
" To arms ! " cried Mortimer, and couched his quiver- 
ing lance. 

In the first quarter of the nineteenth century 
the religious, philosophical, and literary ideas of 
the English, which for a century had been formed 
on traditionary models, were quickened by many 
new influences, among which the exciting and 
changing aspects of the French Revolution were 
the most direct. Social questions long regarded 
as settled were debated with feverish enthusiasm 
by the younger men. Literary expression became 
with Wordsworth and Coleridge more untram- 
meled and more varied. Many of the concep- 
tions which were slowly gathering in the general 



1 66 THE ODE 

mind were well fitted for emotional expression in 
the ode form, for they were based on generous 
sympathy for humanity, and a much more pro- 
found feeling for the beauty of nature and art 
than had marked the age of Dr. Johnson and Sir 
Joshua Reynolds. Coleridge and Wordsworth 
embodied this feeling in odes to Freedom, to 
Duty, to France, and to Mont Blanc. Later, 
Shelley did much the same in his odes to Naples, 
to Liberty, and to the West Wind. Many lines of 
Byron's Cliilde Harold are odelike in structure, as 
are the addresses to the Ocean, to Venice, and on 
the Colosseum. Keats, too, expressed passionate 
love for the beautiful in two well-known odes which 
are the best muniments to his title as poet. 

Ten of Wordsworth's compositions are entitled 
odes by their author, but several others, even some 
of his sonnets, have the ode character. The great 
ode on the Intimations of Immortality has been re- 
ferred to before as justifying irregular versification. 
It embodies thought, which every one who has 
reached maturity recognizes more or less distinctly 
as having come to himself at times. Its popularity 
depends on its admirable phrasing from both the 
intellectual and the musical standpoint. The fifth 
stanza exemplifies these qualities, but no better 
than do the first, second, and eleventh. 

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting : 

The soul that rises with us, our life's Star, 
Hath had elsewhere its setting, 



THE ODE 167 

And cometh from afar ; 

Not in entire forgetfulness, 

And not in utter nakedness, 
But trailing clouds of glory do we come 

From God who is our home ; 
Heaven lies about us in our infancy ; 
Shades of the prison-house begin to close 

Upon the growing Boy, 
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, 

He sees it in his joy; 
The youth, who daily further from the east 
Must travel, still is nature's priest, 

And by the vision splendid 

Is on his way attended ; 
At length the man perceives it die away, 
And fade into the light of common day. 

The Ode to Duty is a succinct embodiment of 
manly Puritanism. These were written in 1806 
and 1804 respectively, in the poet's early man- 
hood. The choral ode written in 1847 as P art °f 
his duty as poet laureate, in his seventy-seventh 
year, is naturally perfunctory. It may be doubted 
whether Wordsworth felt enough sympathy with 
music to enable him to compose an ode for singing 
voices. The occasion was the installation of Prince 
Albert as Chancellor of the University of Cam- 
bridge. The ode is divided into parts for the cho- 
rus, the tenor, the bass, the alto, and the soprano, 
and all are equally frigid, though less pompous and 
empty than some seventeenth-century laureate odes. 



I 68 THE ODE 

Introduction and Chorus 

For thirst of power that heaven disowns, 

For temples, towers, and thrones 
Too long insulted by the spoiler's shock, 

Indignant Europe cast 

Her stormy foe at last 
To reap the whirlwind on a Libyan rock. 

Solo {Tenor) 

War is passion's basest game 

Madly played to win a name ; 
Up starts some tyrant, Earth and Heaven to dare, 

The servile million bow ; 
But will the lightning glance aside to spare 

The Despot's laureled brow ? 

Chorus 

War is mercy, glory, fame, 

Waged in Freedom's holy cause ; 
Freedom such as man may claim 

Under God's restraining laws. 
Such is Albion's fame and glory ; 
Let rescued Europe tell the story. 

The other stanzas rise to no higher level of 
thought or diction. Of the odes of Coleridge the 
first, The Departing Year, written in 1796, in his 
twenty-fourth year, follows pretty closely the Pin- 
daric divisions of strophe, antistrophe, and epode. 
It is characteristic of the author that after the sec- 



THE ODE 169 

ond strophe he departs from the regular scheme 
and changes the length and form of the stanzas. 
His genius was impatient of a regular structural 
formula. So also in his fine ode to Prance written 
in the next year, the five stanzas are all of twenty- 
one lines and the rhyme scheme is the same in all, 
but the long and short lines do not follow each 
other in the same order ; that is, he follows the 
pattern of Spenser's Epithalamion in part and dis- 
regards it in part. It is none the less a spirited, 
elevated, and musical poem, and there is no reason 
to suppose that it would have been improved had 
the author laboriously sought technical exactness. 

His Hymn before Sunrise in blank verse might 
well be entitled an Ode to Mont Blanc. It merits 
the vague term " sublime," as well as any passage 
from Paradise Lost. The subject of the ode to De- 
jection is too personal for the true ode form. It 
consists of eight irregular stanzas and is a poignant 
expression of helplessness and weakness, in which 
the author in lamenting the gradual decay of his 
poetic power gives the best proof of its existence. 
In this, as in Kubla Khan and CJiristabel, Coleridge 
exemplifies the proposition that metrical irregular- 
ity in itself may be in the hands of a poet a means 
of emotional expression quite as forcibly as Words- 
worth does in the ode on the Intimations of Immor- 
tality from Recollections of Early Childhood. 

The elation aroused in thoughtful young men by 
the French Revolution in the last decade of the 



170 THE ODE 

eighteenth century was chilled by the lawless out- 
rages of the "Reign of Terror," and the subsequent 
military dictatorship of Napoleon. Enthusiasm 
for freedom and liberty — vague but inspiring 
words — finds its proper embodiment in dithyram- 
bic song. Coleridge and Wordsworth were at first 
thrilled with the idea that mankind was making an 
abrupt advance toward social emancipation from 
injustice, and then they were disappointed to find 
that centuries of oppression unfit both the oppress- 
ors and the oppressed for freedom. But after the 
battle of Waterloo and the restoration of the Bour- 
bons it soon became evident that the Revolution 
was justified by precedent conditions and that 
" Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity " were not alto- 
gether unmeaning words. The career of Napo- 
leon appealed powerfully to the imagination, and 
Shelley, profoundly impressed with the idea that 
" political freedom was the direct agent to effect 
the happiness of mankind," and hating injustice 
with a fierce personal feeling, made the ode as well 
as the semi-allegorical poem a vehicle for his pas- 
sionate belief in progress and perfectibility. Byron, 
whose energetic power of expression makes many 
passages in his longer works detachable and ode- 
like, designates but two of his poems " odes." 
Keats loved concrete beauty more than moral 
beauty or abstract principle, but his odes are 
among the most precious possessions of the Eng- 
lish-speaking race. 



THE ODE I^I 

The lyric impulse combined with enthusiasm for 
hopeless causes makes Shelley's poetry and even 
his life an ode to humanity. The Revolt of Islam, 
though an allegory, idealizes the struggle of a 
people against selfish power acknowledging no 
responsibility except its own vicious nature. Pas- 
sionate scorn for injustice and passionate love for 
the beautiful and the righteous filled his heart and 
overflowed in his verse. He says, " I have written 
fearlessly." He entitles but few of his poems 
"odes," among them the Ode to the West Wind, 
Ode to Heaven, and Ode to Liberty, but the Hymn 
to Intellectual Beauty and the verses to Mont Blanc 
are as truly odes as any in English literature. 
Adonais is designated an "elegy" and has more 
the nature of a lament than of a funeral ode or 
encomium. The Ode to Liberty has the rapidity 
and the sustained vigor which we associate with 
the word "Pindaric." 

A glorious people vibrated again 

The lightning of the Nations : Liberty 

From heart to heart, from tower to tower, o'er Spain, 
Scattering contagious fire into the sky 

Gleamed. My soul spurned the chains of its dismay, 
And in the rapid plumes of song, 
Clothed itself sublime and strong ; 

As a young eagle soars the morning clouds among, 

Hovering in verse o'er its accustomed prey, 
Till from its station in the heaven of fame 

The Spirit's whirlwind rapt it, and the ray 



172 THE ODE 

Of the remotest sphere of living flame 
Which paves the void was from behind it flung 
As foam from a ship's swiftness, when there came 
A voice from out the deep : " I will record the same." 

The rise and fall of liberty in Greece, Rome, Italy, 
and Germany is detailed and the fate of Saxon Eng- 
land and of the Commonwealth sketched when — 

England's prophets hailed thee [Liberty] as their 
queen 

In songs whose music cannot pass away 
Though it must flow forever : not unseen 

Before the spirit-sighted countenance 
Of Milton didst thou pass from the sad scene 
Beyond whose night he saw with a dejected mien. 

The fifteenth stanza expresses vigorously the 
hatred Shelley felt for the word " king " and all 
that it represented to him : — 

Oh, that the free would stamp the impious name 
Of King into the dust ! or write it there 

So that this blot upon the page of fame 

Were as a serpent's path which the light air 

Erases and the flat sands close behind ! 
Ye the oracle have heard ; 
Lift the victory-flashing sword, 

And cut the snaky knots of this foul Gordian word, 

Which, weak itself as stubble, yet can bind 
Into a mass irrefragably firm 

The axes and the rods which awe mankind ; 



THE ODE 173 

The sound has poison in it, 'tis the sperm 
Of what makes life foul, cankerous, and abhorred. 
Disdain not thou, at thine appointed term, 
To set thine armed heel on this reluctant worm. 

The poem To a Skylark may also be regarded as 
an ode in the Horatian manner. It and the Ode to 
the West Wind are among the best loved of Shel- 
ley's poems. The Ode to Naples is as full of elec- 
tric energy as the Ode to Liberty. 

Byron, though less under conviction than Shelley, 
commanded the rhetorical vigor of style and the 
constructive power necessary to the composition of 
the ode. He wrote but one or two odes, though, as 
said before, passages of lyrical description, which 
are odes in spirit and structure, might be detached 
from his longer poems. In his Ode to Napoleon 
Bonaparte his cynical temper leads him into satiri- 
cal taunts foreign to the ode spirit. With Shelley, 
indignation is rarely directed against an individual. 
Byron writes : — 

But thou forsooth, must be a king, 

And don the purple vest ; 
As if that foolish robe could wring 

Remembrance from thy breast. 
Where is that faded garment ? where 
The gewgaws thou wert fond to wear, — 

The star — the string — the crest ? 
Vain, froward child of empire ! say, 
Are all thy playthings snatched away ? 



174 THE ODE 

His closing stanza, however, is more generous in 
tone, possibly no less just: — 

Where may the wearied eye repose 

When gazing on the great, 
Where neither guilty glory glows 

Nor despicable state ? 
Yes — one — the first — the last — the best — 
The Cincinnatus of the West, 

Whom envy dared not hate, 
Bequeathed the name of Washington 
To make man blush there was but one ! 

The stanzaic form of the above is altogether too 
tripping and songlike for an ode, even for a 
Horatian ode, and the satire is throughout too 
direct and personal. Indignation like Shelley's 
may find its proper expression in an ode, but 
Byron's Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte is hardly better 
entitled to the name than is his brilliant and witty 
satire The Vision of Judgment. Nevertheless, By- 
ron might have written some great odes if he had 
believed in humanity. 

Keats entitled six of his poems odes. Two of 
them, the Ode on a Grecian Urn and the Ode to a 
Nightingale, are supremely beautiful in expression. 
The sentiment in each is far more subtle and deli- 
cate than that which ordinarily finds expression in 
the ode form, but the phrase gives the sentiment 
reality with beauty and precision. We feel with 
the poet that material things are unreal and tran- 



THE ODE 175 

sient compared with the thrilling song of the bird 
heard in darkness, which links itself with the ever- 
lasting in nature, and is, indeed, eternal since its 
essence is the beautiful which exists unchanged 
from the beginning. We have a perception that 
ultimate truth is expressed in the seventh stanza : — 

Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird ; 

No hungry generations tread thee down ; 
The voice I hear this passing night was heard 

In ancient days by emperor and clown : 
Perhaps the selfsame song that found a path 

Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, 
She stood in tears amid the alien corn ; 
The same that oft-times hath 
Charmed magic casements opening on the foam 
Of perilous seas, in fairy lands forlorn. 

The word " forlorn " brings him back from a per- 
ception of the eternal and spiritual in nature, which 
the beautiful dimly evokes, to his " sole self," no 
longer a part of the universal, but an individual, 
pathetically transient, the heir to suffering and 
death, "clothed in the muddy vesture of decay"; 
and the song of the bird passes away leaving him 
uncertain whether it or the world of reality is a 
dream. The thought is so different from the vigor- 
ous everyday ideas, "understanded of the people," 
which we associate with the word " ode " as to tempt 
us to call the title in this case a misnomer. 

In the Ode on a Grecian Urn, the sentiment is no 



176 THE ODE 

less poetic. The urn itself is a " sylvan historian, 
who canst thus express a flowery tale more sweetly 
than our rhyme." The figures on it are fixed in an 
everlasting attitude of beauty and expectation. It 
is the pursuit, not the fruition, that makes happi- 
ness. This " cold pastoral," with its moveless and 
silent figures of youths and maidens and singers, is 
an arrested bit of life, and — 

When old age shall this generation waste, 
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe 

Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou sayest 
" Beauty is truth, truth beauty " — that is all 
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. 

These two odes contain a happy combination of 
end-stopt and overflow lines. Both are written 
in ten-line stanzas with five beats to the line, and 
the rhyme scheme in both is a quatrain with alter- 
nate rhymes and then a sextette in which the ter- 
minals of the first three lines are echoed by the 
last three. There is, however, a slight difference 
in the versification. In the five stanzas of the 
Ode on a Grecian Urn, the ten lines are all of 
equal length and the sextette rhymes run abc- 
abc in two cases only, the others being abc-bac 
or abc-acb. In the Ode to a Nightingale the 
eighth line is short — three accents only: "In 
some melodious plot," or " But here there is no 
light." In this the sextette rhymes are invariably 
abc-abc. Possibly Keats's poetic ear perceived 



THE ODE 177 

instinctively that, the short line being more em- 
phatic, the rhymes after it should fall in an invari- 
able order. Our attention is arrested by the short 
line, and we naturally expect it to rhyme to the 
same line in each stanza. When the lines are all 
of the same length, the slight change in rhyme 
sequence gives no shock. Whether or not this ad- 
herence to sequence in one case and slight departure 
from it in the other is premeditated or instinctive 
is of little consequence and can never be determined. 
Both of the poems are entirely satisfying in form. 
In the latter part of the nineteenth century ( 1 877) 
Coventry Patmore published a number of odes, the 
work of a man of letters rather than an inspired 
singer. The Ode to the Unknown Eros is a very 
good argument from example to prove the propo- 
sition that " when verse does not gain by being 
written without reference to strict stanzaic law, 
it loses." In the following extract it will be 
noticed that the length of the lines is determined 
by the chance occurrence of the rhymes and not 
by any inner correspondence between emotion and 
expression : — 

What rumored heavens are these 

Which not a poet sings, 
O unknown Eros ? What this breeze 

Of sudden wings, 
Speeding at far returns of time from interstellar space 

To fan my very face, 

And gone as fleet, 

FORMS OF ENG. POETRY — 12 



lyS THE ODE 

Through delicatest ether 1 feathering soft their solitary 
beat, 
With ne'er a light plume dropped nor any trace 

To speak of whence they came, or whither they de- 
part ? 

This is work of the fancy, not of the imag- 
ination, and the lawlessness of the meter has no 
justification in any higher law of harmony. The 
metrical construction may profitably be compared 
with that of Wordsworth's ode. 

Mr. Swinburne possesses some of the powers nec- 
essary to a writer of odes. His music is striking 
and insistent though lacking in all the profounder 
qualities. He is, however, always in earnest or 
forces himself to think that he is. His verses to 
Landor are every way beautiful, and the stanza — 

I came as one whose thoughts half linger, 

Half run before, 
The youngest to the oldest singer 

That England bore 

is of absolute perfection. A Watch in the Night 
which was referred to in the first chapter might 
have been entitled "An Ode to the Nations." It 
is marred, as is much of Swinburne's work, by 
lack of constructive power. Stanza is added to 
stanza, all of monotonous melody, but not definite 
steps in the unfolding and concluding of the central 

1 " Delicatest ether " is probably the most cacophonous combina- 
tion to be found in all poetry. 



THE ODE 179 

theme. The poem might have been closed at any 
point after the eighth stanza. Much the same 
stricture applies to the stanzas of the fine Ode to 
Victor Hugo in Exile, an evenly sustained dithy- 
rambic of unqualified praise. A brief excerpt will 
exemplify the energetic style of the encomium : — 

Thou art chief of us and lord ; 

Thy song is as a sword 
Keen-edged and scented in the blade from flowers ; 

Thou art lord and king ; but we 

Lift younger eyes and see 
Less of high hope, less light on wandering hours ; 

Hours that have borne men down so long, 
Seen the right fail, and watched uplift the wrong. 

But thine imperial soul, 

As years and ruins roll 
To the same end, and all things and all dreams 

With the same wreck and roar 

Drift on the dim same shore, 
Still in the bitter foam and brackish streams 

Tracks the fresh water-spring to be 
And sudden sweeter fountains in the sea. 

Tennyson's Ode to Memory was written before 
he had reached his twenty-first year. It is a re- 
flective poem, but in form and structure a true ode, 
nor is its beauty altogether that of promise. His 
Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington, twenty- 
two years later, is all that the occasion demanded, 



l80 THE ODE 

a musical, dignified, and patriotic encomium. It 
is irregular in stanzaic construction ; the movement 
changes from the opening : — 

Bury the Great Duke 

With an Empire's lamentation, 

through the solemn funeral march : — 

Lead out the pageant sad and slow, 

and the sober, exultant mention of his victories, 
the confident prophecy of his future fame : — 

Peace, his triumph will be sung 
By some yet un molded tongue, 

to the final requiem and farewell : — 

Lay your earthly fancies down, 
And in the vast cathedral leave him : 
God accept him, Christ receive him. 

These changes are but slight and consist chiefly 
in shortening the lines, but they are beautifully 
accordant with the sentiment embodied in each 
division of the ode. The rhymes are for the most 
part in couplets or alternate, and in the fifth 
stanza, the commitment, the repeated sound " old " 
has a dirgelike effect : — 

All is over and done; 
Render thanks to the Giver, 
England, for thy son. 



THE ODE l8l 

Let the bell be tolled. 
Render thanks to the Giver, 

And render him to the mold. 

Under the cross of gold 
That shines over city and river, 
There shall he rest forever 

Among the wise and bold. 

Let the bell be tolled, 

And a reverent people behold 
The towering car, the sable steeds ; 
Bright let it be with its blazoned deeds, 

Dark in its funeral fold. 

Let the bell be tolled ; 
And a deeper knell in the heart be knolled ; 
And the sound of the sorrowing anthem rolled 
Thro' the dome of the golden cross ; 
And the volleying cannon thunder his loss ; 

He knew their voices of old, 
For many a time in many a clime, 
His captain 's-ear has heard them boom 
Bellowing victory, bellowing doom. 

The dignity of these iambics changes to an exult- 
ant, mixed trochaic movement in the invocation to 
Nelson : — 

Who is he that cometh like an honored guest, 

With banner and with music, with soldier and with 

priest, 
With a nation weeping, and breaking on my rest ? 

Mighty seaman this is he 

Was great by land as thou by sea. 



1 82 THE ODE 

The poem is a thoroughly worthy national expres- 
sion and is artistic in a high sense. Tennyson's 
choral ode sung at the opening of the International 
Exhibition in 1863 as well as his ''welcomes" to 
Alexandra and to Alexandrovna are the work of a 
poet so skillful in his art as to be unable to per- 
form a perfunctory task in a commonplace manner, 
but they are far from being such great monuments 
of poetry as the Ode on the Death of the Duke. 

In our own country Lowell's Commemoration 
Ode stands first among a number of occasional 
poems, some of which, like Stedman's ode at the 
Yale Bicentennial, filled all the requirements of 
dignified occasional verse. Mr. Lowell had the 
advantage of a very " great occasion." The war 
was over and time enough had elapsed to dull the 
poignancy of grief and the keenness of personal, 
resentment. Men could now begin to view the 
Civil War in its moral aspects as a part of human 
development, not simply a clash of physical forces 
where the result might be merely a change in civil 
geography. A true conception of the character of 
President Lincoln had grown up in the public 
mind and his death was as yesterday. The poet 
himself was among those bereaved by the war. 
All these things combined to charge the day with 
emotion, and Mr. Lowell could say with absolute 
certainty of response, " In my breast, thoughts beat 
and burn." The death of the Duke of Wellington 



THE ODE 183 

called forth national emotion, but in a very different 
sense. Americans regarded their President with 
personal affection and felt for him as tribesmen 
might for a chieftain who had been treacherously 
done to death when engaged in their service. The 
Duke of Wellington had been a national figure for 
a generation, but neither wrath nor grief follow one 
however distinguished who dies in the fullness of 
time. Nor was the duke in the least a leader of 
the people in the sense that Lincoln was. Lowell 
could appeal to a far deeper and higher range of 
emotion than could Tennyson, for there is such a 
thing as national love compared to which national 
pride is but cheap and thin and commonplace. 
Tennyson could draw on the full, rich history of 
England for color; he was, too, a far better melodic 
word artist than Lowell, but his subject was far in- 
ferior in dignity and scope. The odes are as dif- 
ferent as possible, as different as are America and 
England. The most that Tennyson can say for 
the Duke of Wellington is that he was a steady, 
successful soldier that " never lost an English gun," 
and that he told the truth — qualities not so rare as 
to deserve enthusiastic celebration. This Lowell 
might have said of General Grant, but the thought 
of Lincoln lifts him at once to a higher plane : — 

Such was he our martyr chief 

Whom late the Nation he had led, 
With ashes on her head, 

Wept with the passion of an angry grief : 



I 84 THE ODE 

Forgive me if from present things I turn 

To speak what in my heart will beat and burn, 

And hang my wreath on his world-honored urn. 

Nature they say doth dote, 
And cannot make a man 
Save on some worn-out plan, 

Repeating as by rote. 
For him her Old World molds aside she threw, 

And, choosing sweet clay from the breast 

Of the unexhausted West, 
With stuff untainted shaped a hero new ; 
Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true. 

How beautiful to see 
Once more a shepherd of mankind, indeed, 
Who loved his charge but never loved to lead ; 
One whose meek flock the people joyed to be, 

Not lured by any cheat of birth, 

But by his clear-grained human worth, 
And brave old wisdom of sincerity. 

Nothing of Europe here ; 
Or then, of Europe fronting mornward still, 

Ere any, names of Serf and Peer 
Could Nature's equal scheme deface; 
And thwart her genial will ; 
Here was a type of the true elder race 
And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face. 



Great captains with their guns and drums 
Disturb our judgment for the hour, 



THE ODE I85 

But at last silence comes : 
These are all gone, and, standing like a tower, 
Our children shall behold his fame, 

The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man, 
Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame, 

New birth of our new soil, the first American. 

In his ode entitled Under the Old Elm, com- 
memorating the one hundredth anniversary of 
Washington's taking command of the American 
army, July 3, 1775, Mr. Lowell pays as noble a 
tribute to Washington as he had to Lincoln in 
1865. He is said to have preferred this to any 
of his memorial odes, — but the remembrance of 
the recent dead seems to communicate to the Com- 
memoration Ode a more personal note than can 
be infused into verse celebrating our Revolution- 
ary heroes. The invocation to Virginia, however, 
connects the recent and the remote past : — 

Virginia gave us this imperial man, 

Cast in the massive mold 

Of those high-statured ages old 
Which into grander forms our mortal metal ran ; 
She gave us this unblemished gentleman ; 

What shall we give her back but love and praise 

As in the dear old unestranged days 
Before the inevitable wrong began ? 
Mother of States and undiminished men, 

Thou gavest us a country, giving him, 
And we owe alway what we owed thee then ; 



1 86 THE ODE 

The boon thou wouldst have snatched from us again, 
Shines as before with no abatement dim. 

vfc yfc yfc yfc yfc $fc 

We from this consecrated plain stretch out 

Our hands as free from afterthought or doubt, 

As here the united North 

Poured her embrowned manhood forth 

In welcome of our savior and thy son. 

Through battle we have better learned thy worth, 

The long-breathed valor and undaunted will, 
Which, like his own, the day's disaster done, 

Could, safe in manhood, suffer and be still. 
Both thine and ours the victory hardly won : 

If ever with distempered voice or pen 
We have misdeemed thee, here we take it back, 
And for the dead of both don common black. 

Be to us evermore as thou wast then. 

The gentle verse of Longfellow accorded better 
with the flute than with the trumpet or the bugle. 
The ode form did not attract him, apparently, 
though the Building of the Ship has more vigor 
and rapidity of movement than some so-called odes. 
It is, however, narrative and descriptive and is more 
of a ballad than an ode. Whittier adhered pretty 
closely to simple stanzaic models and to short com- 
positions. In consequence his " national lyrics " 
with the possible exception of Laus Deo are not 
strictly odes. When he wrote verses for a public 
occasion or for singing, they naturally took the 
form of hymns. The poetic addresses on public 



THE ODE 187 

occasions delivered by Dr. Holmes were written 
in the heroic couplet and were at once witty and 
academic. Sidney Lanier's choral ode, the Cen- 
tennial Cantata t for the opening of the Exposition 
in Philadelphia in 1876, for which Dudley Buck 
wrote the music, though written entirely with a 
view to musical rendition, treats the topics natur- 
ally suggested with breadth and vigor. Mrs. Har- 
riet Monroe's ode for the World's Fair at Chicago, 
1893, is a dignified composition worthy of the 
occasion. Sidney Lanier's choral ode, the open- 
ing stanza of which follows, produced a great effect 
when given by the trained chorus of two hundred 
voices : — 

Centennial Cantata 

From this hundred-terraced height, 
Sight more large with nobler light 
Ranges down yon towering years. 
Humbler smiles and lordlier tears 
Shine and fall, shine and fall, 
While old voices rise and call 
Yonder where the to-and-fro 
Weltering of my Long- Ago 
Moves about the moveless base 
Far below my resting place. 

Mayflower, Mayflower, slowly hither flying, 

Trembling westward o'er yon balking sea, 
Hearts within, " Farewell, dear England," sighing, 
Winds without, " But dear in vain," replying, 



1 88 THE ODE 

Gray-lipped waves about thee shouted, crying, 
" No, it shall not be ! " 

Lanier's Psalm of the West, written in the same 
year as the Centennial Cantata, is a poetical review 
of our history in ode form and movement, but long 
enough to be divided into three odes on different 
historical epochs. His Ode to Johns Hopkins Uni- 
versity is one of the many excellent " poems for 
occasions " buried here and there in our literature, 
the interest of which was heightened by the occa- 
sion but by no means entirely dependent on it. 
The odes by William Vaughn Moody and Owen 
Wister, published in the Atlantic Monthly, go to 
show that vigorous poetic expression is not a lost 
art in America, and that the ode form is well 
adapted to the multifarious thought and broad 
social emotions of our age. 



CHAPTER V 

DIRGES AND MEMORIAL VERSE 

The emotion of grief seeks relief in rhythmical 
and metrical language as naturally as does the 
emotion of love or exultation. Dirges, laments, 
and funeral hymns are connected with the earliest 
religious observances. The " keen " or wailing cry 
of Celtic women over the dead is a survival of the 
tribal lament, and is the only primitive poetical 
expression that can ever be heard in our country. 
Feelings of which we are unconscious though we 
have inherited them from very distant ancestors 
respond vaguely to this ancient lyrical wail. The 
funeral hymn, too, meets a very general response 
from emotions common to all civilized people, but 
much nearer the surface. It is unnecessary, how- 
ever, to refer to the universal nature of grief, the 
"legacy of love," the inevitable consequence of 
the conditions which make society possible and 
life endurable. It is sufficient to say that a class 
of poems in our own, and in every other language, 
gives expression and relief to sorrow, or commem- 



I90 DIRGES AND MEMORIAL VERSE 

orates eminent character and services. In some of 
them personal feeling is dominant, in others, when 
the loss is public or national, the feelings of the 
community are embodied. If personal feeling is 
entirely absent and the poet is merely the spokes- 
man of the community, the poem is an ode, like 
Tennyson's Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wel- 
lington. Personal feeling, however, is rarely en- 
tirely absent, for the poet feels the loss of the 
community as if it were his own, the situation 
reproduces itself in his mind as vividly as a per- 
sonal experience could, he sympathizes with the 
nation or with humanity in an untimely loss as 
Shelley does in his lament for Keats. Memorial 
verse is essentially emotional except in some of 
the odes of the official poets laureate on the death 
of the sovereign, in which the diction and the 
sentiment are alike professional. 

The first lament in our language in point of 
time is Chaucer's Boke of the Duchess e. This 
was written in commemoration of Blanche of 
Castile, wife of John of Gaunt, first Duke of 
Lancaster. It is romantic in construction and 
hints only remotely at actual life. The poet, being 
unable to sleep, promises Morpheus a feather bed 
and pillows if he will relieve him, whereupon he 
not only falls asleep, but is visited by a dream in 
which a knight celebrates the beauty of his lady 
and laments her death. The only reference to the 
Lady Blanche is in the lines : — 



DIRGES AND MEMORIAL VERSE 191 

And gode faire Whyte she hete, 1 
That was my lady name right, 
She was bothe fair and bright, 
She hadde not hir name wrong. 

The romantic allegory is far removed from our 
methods of expression, but we can still admire the 
poet's conception of a fair and gracious lady, of 
whom the knight says : — 

I saw hir daunce so comlily, 
Carole and sing so swetely 
Laugh and pleye so womanly, 
And loke so debonairly, 
So goodly speke and so frendly, 
That certes, I trow, that evermore, 2 
Nas seyn so blissful a tresor. 

The memorial verses so frequently prefixed to the 
collected works of dead authors are usually not 
much more than complimentary notices of the 
book. Ben Jonson's well-known verses to the 
memory of " My beloved, the Author, Master 
William Shakespeare and what he has left us," 
evince generous appreciation of the poet's pre- 
eminence and enthusiastic friendship as well. He 
declines to rank him with his contemporaries, — 
"great, but disproportioned muses," — and boldly 
claims for him a place with the greatest of all ages. 
It is the first recognition of the real character of 

1 Hete, was called. 

2 Evermore nas seen, never was seen. 



192 DIRGES AND MEMORIAL VERSE 

Shakespeare's genius. He speaks of his — Shake- 
speare's — character in the lines : — 

Look how the father's face 
Lives in his issue. Even so the race 
Of Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly shines 
In his well-turned and true-filed lines, 

as if his friend's nature was as harmonious and 
well balanced as his verses are. We must regret 
that the eulogist did not go more into detail and 
express his feelings for the author as fully as he 
did his admiration of his book, but we are thankful 
he said as much as he did. The other verses in the 
folios are confined to praise of the poetry and the 
acting qualities of the plays. The finest were 
prefixed to the second folio (1632) and are signed 
I. M. S. They recognize the vital quality of 
Shakespeare's historical characters quite as dis- 
tinctly as modern critics have done : — 

A mind reflecting ages past, whose clear 

And equal surface can make things appear — 

Distant a thousand years, and represent 

Them in their lively colours, just extent : 

To outrun hasty Time, retrieve the Fates, 

Roll back the heavens, blow ope the iron gates ■ 

Of Death and Lethe, where confused lie 

Great heaps of ruinous mortality : 

In that deep dusky dungeon to discern 

A royal ghost from churls ; by art to learn 

The physiognomy of shades, and give 



DIRGES AND MEMORIAL VERSE 1 93 

Them sudden birth, wondering how oft they live ; 

What story coldly tells, what poets feign 

A second-hand, and picture without brain — 

Senseless and soulless shows — to give a stage, 

Ample, and true with life — voice, action, age, 

As Plato's year and new scene of the world 

Them unto us, or us to them had hurled : 

To raise our ancient sovereigns from their hearse, 

Make kings his subjects ; by exchanging verse, 

Enliven their pale trunks, that the present age 

Joys in their joy and trembles at their rage : 

This, and much more which cannot be expressed 
But by himself, his tongue, and his own breast, 
Was Shakespeare's freehold ; which his cunning brain 
Improved by favor of the ninefold train. 

The poem is remarkable for containing the long- 
est known sentence in verse or indeed in prose, — 
nearly five hundred words, — yet so well constructed 
as to be readily comprehensible. The two poems 
prove that Shakespeare was as fully appreciated by 
thoughtful men in the seventeenth century as he has 
been by critics in general since the day of Coleridge 
and Hazlitt. 

Memorial verses are so numerous that it is not 
possible to refer even to the names of those that 
have appeared since 1623. The three great dirges 
in our language are : Milton's Lycidas, Shelley's 
Adonais, and Tennyson's In Memoriam. Lycidas 
appeared in 1637, when the author was twenty-nine 

FORMS OF ENG. POETRY — 1 3 



194 DIRGES AND MEMORIAL VERSE 

years of age, in a volume of verses commemorative 
of Edward King, a young man of promise and a 
fellow collegian with Milton at Cambridge, who 
had been lost at sea crossing to Ireland the year 
before. The verses in the volume are partly in 
the classic languages and partly in English, and 
Milton's appears last. Its construction is in imi- 
tation of the pastoral lament as used by Theoc- 
ritus and imitated by Virgil, but the form is used 
with great freedom and boldness. It was three 
years since the poet wrote Comus, and he preludes 
the lament with the lines : — 

Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more, 
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere, 
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, 
And with forced fingers rude 
Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. 
Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear 
Compels me to disturb your season due ; 
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime, 
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer. 
Who would not sing for Lycidas ? he knew 
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme. 
He must not float upon his watery bier 
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind 
Without the meed of some melodious tear. 

It is possible that Milton felt that his edu- 
cation in poetry was not complete, that it was 
" with forced fingers rude " that he must weave 



DIRGES AND MEMORIAL VERSE 1 95 

the wreath of laurel and myrtle. However that 
may be, he produced a wonderful poem com- 
pounded of incongruous elements, using the pas- 
toral fiction, yet rising into lofty denunciation, 
not unworthy of the Apocalypse. Even the dic- 
tion is full of incongruous images, like : the "parch- 
ing wind" in conjunction with the "watery bier," 
the "melodious tear," "blind mouths," all of them 
bold wrenchings of language to poetic effect. The 
sweet pastoral tone of the opening with its classi- 
cal figures passes into the terrible arraignment of 
worldly ecclesiastics put into the mouth of St. 
Peter, a strain entirely foreign to the pensive 
delicacy of the first sixty lines. The poet himself 
seems to be conscious of this, for he opens the 
next paragraph : — 

Return, Alpheus ; the dread voice is past 

That shrunk thy streams ; return, Sicilian muse, 

and resumes the pastoral strain in the invocation 
to the flowers to " strew the laureate hearse where 
Lycid lies." In the next paragraph he passes to 
the Christian standpoint and declares that Lycidas 
is in heaven : — 

In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love. 
There entertain him all the saints above 
In solemn troops, and sweet societies, 
That sing, and singing in their glory move, 
And wipe the tears forever from his eyes. 



I96 DIRGES AND MEMORIAL VERSE 

The poem begins in the first person and closes 
with an ottava rima in the third : — 

Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills 
While the still morn went out with sandals grey. 

The very beautiful lines expressing the true worth 
of the studious life of the poet scholar seem like 
personal reflections interjected into the pastoral 
lament and are apologized for in the lines which 
follow : — 

O fountain Arethuse, and thou honored flood, 
Smooth-sliding Mincius, crowned with vocal reeds, 
That strain I heard was of a higher mood. 
But now my oat proceeds. 

The images — 

That fatal and perfidious bark 
Built in the eclipse and rigged with curses dark, 

That two-handed engine at the door 

Stands ready to smite once and smite no more, 

and 

Beyond the stormy Hebrides, 
Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide 
Visit'st the bottom of the monstrous world, 

are of tremendous power, untranslatable and un- 
forgettable. The " bottom of the monstrous world " 
figures the dark, unsounded depths of the ocean 



DIRGES AND MEMORIAL VERSE I g 1 / 

where the body may be carried, the " two-handed 
engine" is the inevitable instrument of the force 
of righteousness, the sword of the wrath of God, 
but how much more the words mean than any 
explanation ! No one can give a definite meaning 
to either of these phrases without falling into ab- 
surdity. In no other poem where the pastoral 
fiction is employed can images of such startling 
significance be found. 

But, in spite of the incongruity of the artificial 
and the imaginative elements, the poem is a unity 
and proves that a great poet need not observe 
the ordinary rules of composition. " Nice customs 
courtesy to great kings." The inner spirit of the 
Reformation is compounded with the spirit of the 
Renaissance into a harmony which embraces both. 
Luxuriant classical ornamentation only sets off 
lofty moral earnestness. The sound of the flute 
rises naturally into the call of the trumpet. Milton's 
Lycidas is of organic, not of formal construction, 
and, though it is the shortest of the three dirges and 
seems to have been written hastily, is the greatest 
of the three. It is hardly necessary to add that 
though the rhymes are irregularly placed and 
sometimes omitted altogether, the verbal melody 
is of the highest order and the poem as a whole 
has much the quality of a musical composition by 
a master. The invocation to the flowers is very 
beautiful though less exquisite than that which 
Shakespeare puts into the mouth of Perdita : — 



I98 DIRGES AND MEMORIAL VERSE 

O Proserpina; 
For the flowers now, that, frighted thou let'st fall 
From Dis's wagon ! Daffodils, 
That come before the swallow dares, and take 
The winds of March with beauty. Violets dim, 
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes 
Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses 
That die unmarried, ere they can behold 
Bright Phoebus in his strength, a malady 
Most incident to maids. 

— Winter's Tale. 

Milton, on the other hand, thinks of flowers, 
not as beautiful in themselves, but as emblems of 
nature's mourning. 

Return, Sicilian muse, 
And call the vales and bid them hither cast 
Their bells and flow'rets of a thousand hues. 
Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use 
Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks, 
On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely looks, 
Throw hither all your quaint enamelled eyes, 
That on the green turf suck the honied showers, 
And purple all the ground with vernal flowers. 
Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies, 
The tufted crow-toe and pale jessamine, 
The white pink and the pansy freaked with jet, 
The glowing violet, 

The musk rose and the well-attired woodbine, 
With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head, 
And every flower that sad embroidery wears ; 
Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed, 



DIRGES AND MEMORIAL VERSE 1 99 

And daffodillies fill their cups with tears, 

To strew the laureate hearse where Lycid lies. 

For, so to interpose a little ease, 

Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise. 

Ay me, whilst thee the shores and sounding seas 

Wash far away, where'er thy bones are hurled ; 

Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides, 

Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide 

Visit'st the bottom of the monstrous world. 

It would seem at first glance that to bring in 
successively, nymphs, the god Apollo, the Herald 
of the Sea, the god Eolus, the river god of an 
English stream, and the Christian St. Peter, and 
to close the scene in the Christian heaven must 
result in a strange phantasmagoria, but in Milton's 
poem all contribute to the appeal to the imagina- 
tion like the figures on a Grecian frieze. The 
transitions are so happily managed that one topic 
suggests another, and all is movement from begin- 
ing to end. The poet " touches the tender stops 
of various quills, with eager thought warbling his 
Doric lay." Though the form is artificial, the 
"eager thought" is earnest and sincere. This 
poem alone is enough to prove the fallacy of the 
assertion that the English Reformation was little 
but a change in the personnel of ecclesiastical 
authority, for a poet scholar of the rank of Milton 
integrates the deepest feeling and thought of the 
age in which he lives. The very fact that he puts 
the denunciation of the English church into the 



200 DIRGES AND MEMORIAL VERSE 

mouth of St. Peter, the founder of the Roman 
church, shows how firm a stand for radical right- 
eousness Milton and men of his party took in the 
seventeenth century. 

For the next two centuries there is no lack of 
funeral odes, eulogies of the dead, poetic epitaphs, 
and the like. Most of them are professional and 
perfunctory. Dryden's ode To the Pious Memory 
of Mrs. Anne Killigrew, 1686, is one of the hearti- 
est and honestest of these poetical tributes, and 
contains in the fourth stanza an expression of the 
shame which must come over a writer of plays, if 
he has any elevation of soul, when he reflects in 
middle age how he " profaned the heavenly gift 
of Poesy," and added "fat pollutions " of his own, 
"to increase the steaming ordures of the stage." 
This stanza goes far to redeem the memory of 
Dryden. Insincere adulation reaches its absurd- 
est height and artificial poetic construction its 
lowest depth in Southey's ode on the death of 
George III. A reading of poetry of this class 
throws some light on social conventionalities, but 
none on poetic exposition of a serious theme. It 
is interesting to see how far the expression of one 
of the profoundest emotions can be warped by 
keeping within the limits of an unreal treatment, 
but the examination is depressing in the extreme. 
It is not till 185 1 that we find in Shelley's Adonais 
a poet meditating on the awful but ever-present 
solemnity of death in a manner worthy of his 



DIRGES AND MEMORIAL VERSE 201 

theme. John Keats died at Rome, and Shel- 
ley, though not bound to him by the ties of per- 
sonal friendship, knew him and was entirely 
conscious of his genius. He believed, probably 
erroneously, that the life of the younger poet had 
been embittered by malicious and stupid criticism 
in the reviews. He had suffered from the same 
treatment himself. His grief for the loss of a 
precious and divine talent, and his indignation 
at the thick-witted and unthinking cruelty with 
which the world had rejected it, are as efficient in 
giving his verse vitality as is Milton's hatred of a 
base and conventional ecclesiasticism. Less self- 
contained than Milton, his personal emotion finds 
a less dignified expression, but his sense of the 
significance of death is, to say the least, no less 
profound. His poem is more than twice as long 
as that of Milton, and in musical quality there is 
not much to choose between them ; for both are 
beautiful, though the irregular canzone gives op- 
portunity for greater melodic variety in the hands 
of a master than does the Spenserian stanza used 
by Shelley. 

The machinery of Shelley's poem is classic, 
though only in a very remote degree suggested 
by classic elegiac poetry. He uses the name 
Adonais as Milton used the name Lycidas, but 
at once makes it a synonym for poetry. His 
verse is, indeed, a monument erected by a poet 
to poetry rather than by one poet to another. As 



202 DIRGES AND MEMORIAL VERSE 

" Adonis " was the representative of fleeting youth 
and of spring, so " Adonais " is the emblematic 
name of the eternal lover of spiritual beauty. The 
opening stanza recalls distantly the hymn of Bion 
to Adonis, the name "Adonais" being chosen be- 
cause it fits well into the iambic line. The Greek 
poet begins : " Weep for Adonis he hath perished, 
the beauteous Adonis, dead is the beauteous Adonis, 
the Loves join in the lament. No more in thy pur- 
ple raiment, Cypris, do thou sleep. Arise, thou 
wretched one, and beat thy breast and say, ' Adonis 
is dead.' " 

Shelley's lament begins : — 

I weep for Adonais — he is dead : — 
O weep for Adonais, though our tears 

Thaw not the frost that binds so dear a head ! 
And thou, sad hour, selected from all years 
To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers 

And teach them thine own sorrow ! Say : " With me 
Died Adonais ; till the Future dares 

Forget the past, his fate and fame shall be 

An echo and a light unto Eternity." 

The scene is then removed into the vague, infinite, 
shadowy realm of the spiritual imagination, where 
Urania, the nurse of divine wisdom, the " mighty 
mother" of the mystic world, presides. Shelley 
invented this figurative being, a mediator between 
mortals and the underlying principles of love and 
beauty, from the merest hint in Greek mythology. 



DIRGES AND MEMORIAL VERSE 203 

The invocation to her to grieve for her son, "her 
youngest, dearest one," occupies twenty-one stanzas. 
It begins : — 

Where wert thou, mighty mother, when he lay, 
When thy son lay, pierced by the shaft which flies 

In darkness ? Where was lorn Urania 
When Adonais died ? With veiled eyes, 
'Mid listening echoes in her Paradise 

She sate, while one, with soft enamored breath, 
Rekindled all the fading melodies 

With which like flowers that mock the corse beneath 

He had adorned and hid the coming bulk of death. 

The poet refers to Milton as sacrificed to the 
powers of evil dominant among men : — 

Most musical of mourners, weep again ! 

Lament anew, Urania : — He died, 
Who was the Sire of an immortal strain, 

Blind, old, and lonely, when his country's pride, 

The priest, the slave, and the liberticide, 
Trampled and mocked with many a loathed rite 

Of lust and blood ; he went unterrified 
Into the gulf of death ; but his clear sprite 
Yet reigns on earth, the third among the sons of light. 

The announcement of the death of Keats follows, 
and the reference to " Invisible corruption at the 
door," waiting for the darkness, is one of the 
strongest imaginative expressions in poetry : — 



204 DIRGES AND MEMORIAL VERSE 

To that high capital where kingly Death 

Keeps his pale court in beauty and decay 
He came ; and bought with price of purest breath 

A grave among the eternal. Come away ; 

Haste while the vault of blue Italian day 
Is yet his fitting charnel roof ; while still 

He lies as if in dewy sleep he lay ; 
Awake him not ! surely he takes his fill 
Of deep and liquid rest, forgetful of all ill. 

He will awake no more, oh, never more ! 

Within the twilight chamber spreads apace 
The shadow of white Death, and at the door 

Invisible Corruption waits to trace 

His extreme way to her dim dwelling place ; 
The eternal Hunger sits, but pity and awe 

Soothe her pale rage nor dares she to deface 
So fair a prey till darkness and the law 
Of change shall o'er his sleep the mortal curtain draw. 

The passage which follows, where the " Quick 
Dreams," the thoughts that had sprung from the 
living soul : " Desires and Adorations, winged 
Persuasions and veiled Destinies, Splendors and 
Glooms and glimmering Incarnations of hopes and 
fears and twilight Fantasies," are represented as 
coming to lament their "father and creator," is 
conceived and wrought with the poetic power of 
the seer of visions. The lament of the goddess 
Urania fills four stanzas, and in it Shelley castigates 
the reviewers as : — 



DIRGES AND MEMORIAL VERSE 205 

The herded wolves, bold only to pursue, 
The obscene ravens clamorous o'er the dead, 

The vultures, to the conqueror's banner true, 
Who feed where Desolation first has fed." 

After Urania ceases the poets come : — 

Thus ceased she ; and the mountain shepherds came, 

Their garlands sere, their magic mantles rent ; 
The Pilgrim of Eternity, whose fame 

Over his living head like heaven is bent 

An early but enduring monument, 
Came, veiling all the lightnings of his song 

In sorrow ; from her wilds Ierne sent 
The sweetest lyrist of her saddest wrong. 
And love taught grief to fall like music from his tongue. 

These of course are Byron and Moore. Shelley 
gives three beautiful stanzas to the description of 
himself : — 

'Midst others of less note, came one frail form, 
A phantom among men ; companionless 

As the last cloud of an expiring storm 

Whose thunder is its knell ; he, as I guess, 
Had gazed on nature's naked loveliness, 

Actaeon-like ; and now he fled astray 

With feeble steps o'er the world's wilderness, 

And his own thoughts along that rugged way 

Pursued, like raging hounds, their father and their 
prey. 

A pard-like spirit beautiful and swift, 

A Love in desolation masked ; — a Power 



206 DIRGES AND MEMORIAL VERSE 

Girt round with weakness ; — it can scarce uplift 
The weight of the superincumbent hour ; 
It is a dying lamp, a falling shower, 

A breaking billow, — even whilst we speak 
Is it not broken ? On the withering flower 

The killing sun smiles brightly ; on a cheek 

The life can burn in blood even while the heart may 
break. 

The twenty stanzas from the thirty-sixth to the 
close may be regarded as uttered by Shelley for 
the lament of the poets. The thirty-seventh stanza 
is an arraignment of the reviewer, probably Giff ord 
of the Quarterly: — 

Live thou, whose infamy is not thy fame ! 
Live : fear no heavier chastisement from me, 
Thou noteless blot on a remembered name ! 

The concluding lament contains the following 
beautiful stanza now inscribed on the monument 
to Shelley in Surrey : — 

He has outsoared the shadow of our night ; 

Envy and calumny and hate and pain, 
And that unrest which men miscall delight, 

Can touch him not and torture not again ; 

From the contagion of the world's slow stain 
He is secure, and now can never mourn 

A heart grown cold, a head grown gray in vain ; 
Nor, when the spirit's self has ceased to burn 
With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn. 



DIRGES AND MEMORIAL VERSE 207 

The pantheistic theory that all nature is a mani- 
festation of a pervasive (impersonal ?) divine spirit 
from which the personal soul is derived and into 
which it sinks at death, as a drop of water loses 
its identity in the ocean, is put into brilliant and 
forcible words : — 

He is a portion of the loveliness 

Which once he made more lovely. He doth bear 
His part, while the one Spirit's plastic stress 

Sweeps through the dull dense world, compelling 
there 
All new successions to the forms they wear ; 
Torturing th' unwilling dross, that checks its flight, 

To its own likeness, as each mass may bear, 
And bursting in its beauty and its might 
From trees and beasts and men into the Heaven's light. 

He is made one with Nature, there is heard 
His voice in all her music, from the moan 

Of thunder to the song of Night's sweet bird, 
He is a presence to be felt and known 
In darkness and in light, from herb and stone. 

Spreading itself where'er that Power may move 
Which has withdrawn his being to its own — 

Which wields the world with never-wearied love 

Sustains it from beneath and kindles it above. 

The splendors of the firmament of time 
May be eclipsed, but are extinguished not, 

Like stars to their appointed height they climb 
And death is a low mist which cannot blot 

The brightness it may veil. 



208 DIRGES AND MEMORIAL VERSE 

The " inheritors of unfulfilled renown," the 
poets who died in youth, welcome their brother to 
the abode of the immortals. Apparently Shelley 
did not perceive the contradiction between the 
survival of personality which this implies and the 
pantheistic idea of the mingling of the soul in 
the universal reservoir of spirit embodied in the pre- 
ceding stanzas. The concluding stanzas are an 
almost hysterical lyrical outburst of personal emo- 
tion called up by the thought of death. Shelley's 
poem is anchored in no such reasoned certainty of 
the future life as Milton's is, and death is for him 
a mystery which he passionately longs to solve. 
He says : — 

Go thou to Rome — at once the Paradise, 
The grave, the city, and the wilderness. 

Find the grave marked by the Pyramid of 
Cestus: — 

Where like an infant's smile over the dead 

A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread. 

Die, 

If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek : 
Follow where all is fled ! 

He imagines his spirit disembodied : — 

That Light whose smile kindles the Universe, 
That Beauty in which all things work and move, 

That Benediction which the eclipsing curse 
Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love 



DIRGES AND MEMORIAL VERSE 209 

Which through the web of being blindly wove 
By man and beast and earth and air and sea, 

Burns bright or dim as each are mirrors of 
The fire for which all thirst ; now beams on me. 
Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality. 

The breath whose might I have invoked in song 

Descends on me ; my spirit's bark is driven 
Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng 
Whose sails were never to the tempest given, 
The massy earth and sphered skies are riven ; 

I am borne darkly, fearfully afar ; 
Whilst burning through the inmost veil of Heaven, 
The soul of Adonais, like a star, 
Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are. 

The incongruities in Milton's poem are super- 
ficial and formal, such as must result from the use 
of classical imagery in a Christian lament. The 
sincere faith and resolute will of the writer make 
the Renaissance luxuriance glow with the severe 
ardor of righteousness. Neither Shelley nor Milton 
is under the influence of personal sorrow. Both 
express indignation, but Milton is the advocate of 
a cause which was to play a great part in national 
affairs ; he speaks for a great body of earnest, 
patriotic Englishmen, Shelley for an abstraction, 
for the unorganized conflict which is always going 
on between eager, irrational radicalism and stupid, 
unenlightened conservatism. This gives to Milton's 
poem much the closer relation to life, and to 

FORMS OF ENG. POETRY — 1 4 



2 10 DIRGES AND MEMORIAL VERSE 

Shelley's an air of unreality. The emotion is 
tenser, but the cause is not one which we can 
so readily understand. It is less concrete, less 
part of our everyday experience. The only ad- 
vantage which Shelley had over Milton lay in his 
subject, for Keats was a poet and Edward King 
only a young man of promise, and of this advan- 
tage he avails himself fully. Which of these great 
poems is preferred will depend on the mental con- 
stitution of the reader. 

Twenty-seven years later appeared Tennyson's 
In Memoriam, inspired by sorrow for the loss of 
his friend Arthur Henry Hallam. The construc- 
tion and the thought are much more modern. The 
form is very simple, octosyllabic quatrains in 
groups of four or more stanzas constituting poetic 
paragraphs, or, if we may use the term, strophes. 
The classical imagery is entirely discarded, and 
the poet calls his friend simply Arthur. Even 
the word "Muse" is used but three times. The 
thought is that of the man of to-day, profoundly 
moved by personal grief and reflecting on the 
mystery of death, the question of personal im- 
mortality, and the problems of the future life, con- 
tent with no belief that is not reasonable and more 
willing to remain in uncertainty than to cheat him- 
self by assuming that he is certain without evi- 
dence. The poem contains about three thousand 
lines and is divided into one hundred and thirty-one 
strophes, being thus more than twelve times as 



DIRGES AND MEMORIAL VERSE 2 I I 

long as Lycidas and five times as long as Adonais. 
It is the only long poem in oar language that does 
not contain some level stretches of commonplace, 
and were it not divided into shorter poems, its 
uniform excellence would be tiresome. It differs 
from the poems of Milton and Shelley in that it 
is inspired, not by indignation, but by personal 
affection. 

/;/ Memoriam is the journal of a bereaved man 
extending over three years. In it he records his 
moods, his reflections, his questionings of life, as 
he passed from blank despair to serious and hope- 
ful life. It is divided by the recurrence of the 
festival of Christmas into four parts. The inner 
unity of the whole is attained because the evolu- 
tion of the mind of the writer under one dominant 
emotion, grief, modified by the passage of time, is 
portrayed with truth and sincerity. The develop- 
ment and progression of the thought can be pre- 
sented by paraphrasing better than by citation 
because the beauty of the expression takes atten- 
tion away from the ideas. The full force of the 
ideas can, however, not be perceived apart from 
the original form. The introductory invocation, 
beginning, " Strong Son of God, immortal Love," 
is in the form of a prayer. It was evidently written 
after the poem was finished. It dedicates the 
entire work, as a worshiper might consecrate 
the offering he laid on the altar, by an appeal to 
the Deity. Strictly speaking, it is not a component 



212 DIRGES AND MEMORIAL VERSE 

part of the poem, although it strikes the keynote 
by being addressed to the divine Love which rules 
the universe, and is the creative power which gave 
men the capacity for the fair earthly fellowship 
the poem is to embody and immortalize. 

In the first strophe of four stanzas the poet 
says : " I used to think that grief might in time 
grow incorporate and strengthen character, but 
now it seems impossible to look forward far enough 
to see that such an effect can be realized. It is 
better to cherish a grief, to be helpless and broken 
rather than to feel that time should have a right 
to say, 'This man's acute feeling was but tempo- 
rary. ' " 

The second strophe is addressed to the yew tree 
that shadows a grave : " It seems to draw its nour- 
ishment from the dead. It is penetrated with a 
sullen gloom — looking on it, I feel a fellowship 
with it. I belong to the dead as it does. I am 
part of the tree." 

In the third strophe the poet rebels against the 
deadening effect of sorrow : " Sorrow, priestess of 
death, tells me there is no hope nor relief. Fate 
is too strong. Nature herself is a powerless agency 
rehearsing the behests of Death. Must I then 
give myself up to such a creed ? Is it not weak 
and wrong ? " 

The fourth strophe is also an expression of the 
resistance of the will against the benumbing effect 
of grief : " When sleeping my will is dormant. I 



DIRGES AND MEMORIAL VERSE 21 3 

then cannot resist the weight on my heart. It 
seems to beat dull and low as if oppressed with 
cold. When I wake I resist that hopeless feeling. 
My consciousness resumes its sway, and I feel that 
I ought not to be weakened and ruined by the 
loss of a friend." 

The fifth strophe is also reactionary ; a feeling 
of resistance against the deadening effect of sor- 
row is expressed in the words : " Sometimes it 
seems wrong for me to endeavor to put my feelings 
into words. Words are so inadequate. Neverthe- 
less the exercise of composing is a relief, the 
mechanical regularity of the lines has at least a 
distracting effect, though they infold the merest 
suggestion of the feeling." 

Thus far the thought is strictly subjective, the 
yew tree itself becomes a part of the stupefied 
somberness of the writer's mind, but in the sixth 
strophe there is a recognition of influences from 
the outer world. 

"Friends," he says, "write the usual common- 
places. One says that loss is common to the race. 
As Hamlet says, ' Ay, madam, it is common ' — so 
much the sadder. It is too common. A father 
pledges the health of his absent son. Just as he 
raises his hand the bullet passes through the heart 
of the absent one. A mother is waiting for the 
return of her sailor son. At this very moment his 
corpse is dropped into the sea. Somewhere a maiden 
is blushingly arraying herself, innocently hoping to 



214 DIRGES AND MEMORIAL VERSE 

please her lover. While she is doing so he is 
drowned crossing the ford. Is her grief or mine 
any the less because others have suffered before ? 
Commonplace consolation fails utterly." 

The seventh and eighth strophes contain but one 
thought, or rather one springs naturally out of the 
other. 

" I go to his house in the early dawn, for I can- 
not sleep. I steal away to the door like a guilty 
thing as the day breaks. The noises of human life 
that begin to be heard are distasteful and inhar- 
monious. 

" A lover comes a long distance with exultant 
fondness to see his promised wife. He learns on 
arriving that she is far away from home. At once 
the place seems empty of all pleasure and bright- 
ness. The world seems so to me. Yet, as the 
other, walking disconsolate in the garden, may 
chance to find a flower she once cared for, so this 
little flower of poetry he once loved is cherished 
by me." 

The ninth and tenth strophes are in a more sub- 
dued tone- They are addressed to the ship which 
is bringing home the body of Arthur Hallam. 

" Bring him safely home, bring my Arthur, dear 
to me as the mother to the son, more than my 
brothers are to me, that he may rest in consecrated 
ground. We are soothed by the thought that he 
will lie beneath the sod of his own village in the 
religious center and heart of it." 



DIRGES AND MEMORIAL VERSE 215 

Numbers n, 12, 13, and 14 are very closely con- 
nected. The leading idea is the sense of infinity 
that is borne in on a sad heart by a calm morning, 
the feeling that the soul could go out of the body 
and traverse vast spaces, the unreality, and strange- 
ness, and ever recurring newness of bereavement. 
They mark well one of the earlier phases of grief, 
a phase of exaltation closely connected with all 
periods of high-wrought feeling : " It is a peaceful 
morning, Nature expresses calm and peace, on this 
green plain, in the wide air, on the silver sea. 
There is dead calm, too, in that noble heart of his. 
I seem to be taken up by the great peaceful spirit 
of Nature. My spirit seems to leave the body and 
sweep over the rounded ocean to where the ship 
bringing him moves slowly forward, then to return 
here to the body. All things seem strange and un- 
real. Death and life are confused. If I should hear 
that you had arrived, and go to the wharf and find 
you unchanged and eager to hear about home, I 
should accept it calmly as we do things in a dream." 

This state of tension induced by the expectation 
of receiving the body of his friend ; this sympathy 
with the wider influences of Nature — the sunlight, 
the storm cloud, the winds ; this disposition of the 
mind when under high-wrought expectation to 
overrun great spaces in imagination, to wish to go 
out of the body, this sublimated impatience, is one 
of the most vivid and one of the most true things 
in the poem. The poem is all true and the record 



2l6 DIRGES AND MEMORIAL VERSE 

of actual mental experience. This restlessness not 
infrequently finds vent in exaggerated physical 
activity ; it is a species of ecstatic delirium in 
which wild and whirling words come to the sur- 
face. Tennyson is too self-restrained and balanced 
an artist in temperament to utter the wild lyrical 
cry which would be the relief of the ardent spirit. 
He is the self-cultured modern man. 

Nos. 15 and 16: Toward night the storm comes. 
With it grief assumes energy. " I can imagine 
your spirit fleeing before the storm cloud. How is 
it that sorrow is so different at different times ? 
Is the sorrow in my heart a mere reflex of the 
moods of nature, or is my self-poise broken by the 
shock of grief so that any wind hurries me to and 
fro like a wreck obeying no rudder ? " 

Nos. 17, 18, 19, and 20: "The ship has arrived. 
May it be blest and fortunate forever. It has 
brought the precious dust. Henceforth let it be 
sacred. It is something that he is home. Let us 
hear the ritual. Would that I could give him my 
life. The Danube has given him to the Severn. 
Daily the little bed of the Wye is filled and made 
quiet by the tide from the Severn. It is hushed, 
as my anguish is; then it flows out and the stream 
runs in its former channel. The flood of grief 
sometimes flows from my heart, and I can speak a 
little. Just as in a house when the head is dead, 
the servants can talk, but the children are silent, 
for their hearts are full." 



DIRGES AND MEMORIAL VERSE 21 7 

Nos. 21 to 28: "I think of him and put my 
thoughts in verse. Some say, ' a waste of time ; 
there are earnest things to do.' They do not un- 
derstand. They did not know him. I sing as a 
bird does whose cheerful note is changed because 
her little ones have been taken away. We 
walked the path of life for five years together — 
singing. The shadow called death took him. It 
waits for me somewhere on the path. Looking 
backward and forward on the path, how different 
it seems. Was it so beautiful ? It was, for love 
irradiated it. Looking forward, it is dreary. Still, 
if I thought that I should in time forget my friend 
and reach the calm of indifference, I would rather 
die now. I envy not the mind unfettered by mem- 
ory. 'Tis better to have loved and lost than never 
to have loved at all." 

Nos. 28, 29, and 30 : " The time draws near the 
birth of Christ." This is the first Christmas since 
his death. In Memoriam is a journal of the work- 
ings of grief on the soul. It passes over three 
Christmas festivals. The first is naturally pen- 
sive : " We weave the holly with trembling fingers, 
make vain pretense of gladness, with an awful 
sense of one mute shadow watching us." Yet, 
there is a touch of returning hope for this move- 
ment ends, " Rise happy morn, rise holy morn." 

The thought journal for the next year, which 
runs from No. 31 to No. 76, is more hopeless in 
tone than anything that has gone before. Much 



2l8 DIRGES AND MEMORIAL VERSE 

of it is very difficult to understand. It sounds like 
the pessimistic, settled melancholy of an older 
man. The cheerful or the somber aspects of na- 
ture are not alluded to. The man seems to live in 
the past. Grief is not so poignant, but it is more 
unrelieved. The poet begins by speaking of the 
return of Lazarus. " His sister is so happy that 
she never asks, ' Where wert thou, brother ? ' No 
subtle thought, no curious fears, intrude. ' Thou 
who hast been through the hell of doubts and hast 
come to have a shadowy vague trust in the Univer- 
sal, do not disturb the childlike faith of your sister 
which rests in what seem to you to be unmeaning 
forms, but which to her have a divine significance.' 
I ought to be sure that there is such a thing as the 
immortal life, for otherwise there is no reasonable 
explanation of this world, there would be no choice 
or moral differences in this world. But, even put 
the case that we had positive evidence that death 
is the end-all of the person, could I not even then 
hug the delusion that love is true, or would the 
moanings of the endless sea of oblivion fill me with 
despondency ? But why make a useless hypothe- 
sis ? If we regarded death as final, spiritual love 
would never have existed, love would have been 
mere fellowship, or at best the animal element 
would have been the exclusive one. If there were 
no soul, there would have been no communion of 
souls, no yearning for the high friendship. 

" Now, although these spiritual truths are apart 



DIRGES AND MEMORIAL VERSE 219 

of our being, and therefore man unaided might 
have found them out, bless Christ who not only 
realized the spiritual life but embodied our spiritual 
needs in simple tales that the lowest may appre- 
hend, so that the great creed is put in human ex- 
pression, and touches even the savage man. 

" Does the muse of divine wisdom reprove me 
for dwelling on these matters of deep import ? I 
can only say that I am unworthy with my little art 
to speak of the great mysteries, but brooding over 
my friend's memory and over what he said of spir- 
itual matters, I repeat, murmuring, some of his sug- 
gestions. I am under the dominion of a dumb, 
benumbing sorrow. How can I sing of light mat- 
ters? And if the emancipated spirits care for the 
remembrance of the living, he will joy to know that 
I put in verse some of the thoughts he uttered. . . . 
It would be better if we could look on the dead as 
we look on a sister who leaves home as a bride and 
goes to a new and wider life, whom we take leave 
of with seriousness yet without sorrow, who, though 
severed from her family, will renew her relations to 
humanity in the higher character and nobler dignity 
of matron and mother. But this may not be. You 
and I have parted in a different sense. I wander 
about the old places. You are in a strange coun- 
try. You are in some undiscovered country." 

The remaining poems of this year are of the 
same nature ; questionings, unsettled speculations 
as to the future, subtle in thought, suggestive and 



220 DIRGES AND MEMORIAL VERSE 

delicate in expression. The heading lines of some 
of the strophes may serve to indicate the nature of 
the thought : — 

If sleep and death be truly one. 

How fares it with the happy dead ? 

Be near me when my light is low. 

Do we indeed desire the dead 
Should still be near us at our side ? 

Oh yet we trust that, somehow, good 
Will be the final goal of ill. 

Dost thou look back on what hath been? 

For an instant he admits that his grief has made 
him kindly, as one who has lost his sight takes up 
harmless diversions, listens with a patient smile to 
the prattle of his children, but in his mind evermore 
recalls the light he has lost. Toward the end of 
this year he turns to this world again and to sub- 
jective feeling. The reflective phase is more cheer- 
ful, and the mourner's heart goes out to others more 
than it did a twelvemonth ago. The Christmas 
strophe is quite different, grief is not expressed, 
tears are dry though the regret is even deeper. 
Sorrow has receded into the past. It has been 
transmuted into a part of character. It is more 
permanent than it was when it was a feeling of 
ever present pain. 

The poems of the next year, which run from 
Nos. 77 to 104, are marked by the sentiment ex- 



DIRGES AND MEMORIAL VERSE 221 

pressed in the Christmas strophe. There is less 
brooding on the past, more influence from nature, 
and less morbid, subjective feeling. The New 
Year's bells have rung out the grief that saps the 
mind, the man begins to live in wider and more 
varied relations. He does not sit with his eye 
fixed on a distant point of the horizon. He sees 
the daisy at his feet, and the fruitful champaign be- 
tween him and the vanishing point. He will again 
enter the sphere of human activity. 

I will not shut me from my kind. 

What profit lies in barren faith 
And vacant yearning ? 

The anniversary of his friend's birthday comes. 
The poet speaks of him with pride. Henceforth 
that is the keynote of his words, pride in his friend, 
thankfulness that he has known such a man, such 
a " high nature, amorous of good, but touched with 
no ascetic gloom." He magnifies and glorifies his 
friend's memory from the Christmas song Ring out, 
Wild Bells to the 129th strophe, which closes the 
round of grief. After an interval of six years 
comes the beautiful marriage hymn to his sister, in 
which he says that 

Regret is dead, but love is more 

Than in the summers that have flown, 
For I myself with these have grown 

To something greater than before. 



222 DIRGES AND MEMORIAL VERSE 

This beautiful ode fitly closes the dirge by link- 
ing it to the hope that is infolded in the future for 
the lovers. 

In Memoriam is by no means merely a series of 
beautiful, detached poems on the same general sub- 
ject, but each strophe has its place in the complete 
structure. It is a psychological journal recording 
the moods of a definite, spiritual experience, and it 
moves from point to point by delicate gradations. 
It opens with a presentation of the stunned, dazed 
feeling that follows bereavement when the mental 
shock distorts the mourner's view of nature, caus- 
ing things to assume a strange aspect, the sunshine 
to seem cold and unfeeling, and all nature to seem 
hard and indifferent and unreal. The perceptions 
are at first sharpened, and take in many things 
overlooked before. Death has widened the uni- 
verse. Then comes the period of sadness and 
loneliness when the spirit broods over the past, 
questions destiny, rebels against the lords of life, 
is introspective and retrospective. Then, as in 
healthy minds, comes the period when sorrow sinks 
into the character and is " molded in colossal 
calm " and transmuted into a cheerful seriousness, 
and it is no longer a pain to talk of the lost friend. 
The experience is in no way exceptional except 
that friendship like that between Tennyson and 
Hallam is rare, and the sympathy of living friends 
usually lightens or divides the burden of sorrow. 
The theme of In Memoriam has a close relation 



DIRGES AND MEMORIAL VERSE 223 

to life, far closer than the general theme of 
Lycidas or Adonais. 

These three dirges are all written by young men 
and all inspired by the deaths of young men. In 
none of the three cases was there anything to re- 
lieve the sense of an irreparable loss of a bright 
intelligence called away in early life before it had 
given the world more than promise. The wasteful- 
ness of premature death, the pitiableness of it, im- 
presses the mind in all. The world is fortunate 
that in each case a poet could express in different 
strains a part of what humanity must feel for the 
premature death of a young man. That Tenny- 
son's poem is more intimate and searching in its 
appeal, results from the fact that he is so much 
nearer to us. In no other modern language is 
there anything to compare to the three great Eng- 
lish dirges. We may receive a reasonable encour- 
agement from the fact that the last expresses the 
broadest and most truly Christian philosophy. 

In Memoriam was the task of several years, and 
what Rossetti calls "fundamental brainwork " is 
evident in it. Shorter commemorative poems 
called out by the death of some one whose char- 
acter or public services had made him eminent — 
some " shining mark " loved by death — are nu- 
merous. Matthew Arnold's Thyrsis, the lament 
for his friend the young poet, Clough, is marked 
by genuine feeling to which all can readily respond. 
Swinburne's Ave atque Vale, on the death of the 



224 DIRGES AND MEMORIAL VERSE 

French poet, Charles Baudelaire, is an appreciation 
of a perverted talent which in spite of its musical 
qualities and fine poetry does not appeal to the 
underlying instincts of humanity. His thirteen 
short stanzas In Memory of Walter Savage Landor 
are of exquisite construction : — 

Back to the flower-town, side by side, 

The bright months bring, 
Newborn, the bridegroom and the bride, 

Freedom and spring. 

The sweet land laughs from sea to sea, 

Filled full of sun ; 
All things come back to her, being free ; 

All things but one. 

In many a tender wheaten plot 

Flowers that were dead 
Live, and old suns revive ; but not 

That holier head. 

By this white wandering waste of Sea, 

Far North I hear 
One face shall never turn to me 

As once this year ; 

Shall never smile and turn and rest 

On mine as there, 
Nor one most sacred hand be prest 

Upon my hair. 



DIRGES AND MEMORIAL VERSE 22 5 

I came as one whose thoughts half linger, 

Half run before ; 
The youngest to the oldest singer 

That England bore. 

I found him whom I shall not find 

Till all grief end, 
In holiest age our mightiest, mind, 

Father and friend. 

But thou, if anything endure, 

If hope there be ; 
O Spirit that man's life left pure, 

Man's death set free, 

Not with disdain of days that were 

Look earthward now ; 
Let dreams revive the reverend hair, 

The imperial brow ; 

Come back in sleep, for in the life 

Where thou art not 
We find none like thee. Time and strife 

And the world's lot, 

Move thee no more ; but love at least 

And reverent heart 
May move thee, royal and released 

Soul, as thou art. 

And thou his Florence, to thy trust 

Receive and keep, 
Keep safe his dedicated dust, 

His sacred sleep. 

FORMS OF ENG. POETRY — 1 5 



226 DIRGES AND MEMORIAL VERSE 

So shall thy lovers, come from far, 

Mix with thy name 
As morning star with evening star 

His faultless fame. 

It is impossible to put in more perfect language 
the ordinary reflections that arise on the death 
of a distinguished man. But the great mystery 
does not rise on the imagination as it does in 
reading Lycidas or Adonais or In Memoriam. 
The thought is not carried over into the possibili- 
ties of the future, the tremendous import of life 
is not suggested by the tense lines, seen only in 
the shadow of death, that run from one world into 
another. Everything is on the scale with which 
we measure daily experience, and this seems to 
indicate the distinction between the great dirge 
and memorial verse. 

In our country, memorial verse has never risen 
to the great height though the serious expression 
of sorrow has inspired our poets to the utterance 
of many exquisite laments. Stedman's sonnet on 
Lincoln, Aldrich's verses on Ralph Keeler, Long- 
fellow's farewell to Hawthorne and his sonnets to 
three friends, and many others will come to the 
mind of the reader. Emerson's Threnody, the la- 
ment for his young son, is so realistic as to be pain- 
ful. The father says : — 

The south wind brings 
Life, sunshine, and desire, 



DIRGES AND MEMORIAL VERSE 227 

And on every mount and meadow 
Breathes aromatic fire ; 
But over the dead he has no power, 
The lost, the lost, he cannot restore ; 
And looking over the hills I mourn 
The darling who shall not return. 

I see my empty house, 

I see my trees repair their boughs ; 

And he, the wondrous child, 

Whose silver warble wild 

Outvalued every pulsing sound 

Within the air's cerulean round, 

The hyacinthine boy for whom 

Morn might well break and April bloom, — 

The gracious boy, who did adorn 

The world whereinto he was born, 

And by his countenance repay 

The favor of the loving Day, 

Has disappeared from the Day's eye. 

****** 

And whither now, my truant wise and sweet, 

O, whither tend thy feet ? 

I had the right, few days ago, 

Thy steps to watch, thy place to know ; 

How have I forfeited that right ? 

Hast thou forgot me in a new delight ? 

****** 

On that shaded day 

Dark with more clouds than tempests are, 

When thou didst yield thy innocent breath 

In bird-like heavings unto death, 



228 DIRGES AND MEMORIAL VERSE 

Night came and Nature had not thee, 

I said " we are mates in misery." 

The morrow dawned with needless glow ; 

Each snow bird chirped, each fowl must crow ; 

Each tramper started ; but the feet 

Of the most beautiful and sweet 

Of human youth had left the hill 

And garden. 

After the father's lament the " deep heart " (of 
the universe) answers, giving such comfort as phi- 
losophy affords, which seems only to intensify our 
sense of the indifference of nature to human sor- 
row and of the useless waste and cruel wrong to 
humanity involved in the death of a child. Nor 
is the artistic form of the poem so beautiful as to 
be consoling simply by its beauty. 

Nevertheless Emerson's Threnody, like all the 
poetry of sorrow, is educative in the highest sense, 
since it calls us away from our preoccupation with 
forms and appearances to serious reflection on the 
unknown reality. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE LYRIC AND SONG 

The word " lyric " has much the same indefinite 
range of meaning as the word " ode." Primarily a 
poetical composition fitted to be sung by a single 
voice, not recited or chanted, it is of necessity 
restricted to comparatively short compositions. In 
consequence it admits no detailed narrative like 
the ballad. It can present only the outline of a 
situation, and the personal impression made on 
the poet must give it emphasis. Its burden is 
largely emotional, and it should appeal to feelings 
common to the majority of mankind. The lyric 
must be musical in form since it is through musical 
form that emotion can be best expressed. Love is 
the most universal passion, and is so much the most 
frequent subject of lyrical expression that the word 
" lyric " is colored in the conception of most persons 
with the idea of joy and spontaneity. It is true 
that grief and the religious sentiment are also 
emotions which are naturally expressed in the 
terms of rhythmical harmony, but we usually call 
a religious lyric a hymn or a psalm, and the lyric 
of grief a lament or a dirge, as we call a lyric of 

229 



230 THE LYRIC AND SONG 

adventure a ballad. The lyrical element appears 
in passages of the Drama or Epic when personal 
feeling is expressed in musical words, as in Juliet's 
hymn to love in Romeo and Juliet, or the morning 
hymn of the lovers in the same play, or the parting 
of Hector and Andromache in the Iliad. We can 
speak of the hymn as a sacred lyric, the ode as a 
dignified and extended lyric, the ballad as a narra- 
tive lyric or popular lyric, the short elegy as the 
lyric of grief, and yet retain the word " lyric" un- 
supported by any adjective to mean a short poem 
full of joyous personal emotion expressed in musi- 
cal form and usually adapted to the singing voice. 
In many cases the sonnet is lyrical in tone ; Shake- 
speare's love sonnets are notably so, but a sonnet 
is a sonnet though frequently belonging to the 
general class of lyrical poetry and sometimes to 
that of reflective poetry. 

The true lyric or song, in the modern sense, is 
the brief expression of subjective emotion : pathos, 
love, exultation, patriotism, or any feeling upper- 
most in the mind of the singer. It should have 
some energy and variety of movement though not 
necessarily of form, for the emotion proper to the 
lyric is not stationary — it has life and flow. The 
lyric arouses the emotional faculties, whether it be 
read or sung, by bringing us in contact with the feel- 
ing of the poet, and thereby conduces to psychical 
health, quite as important a matter as physical 
health. It may appeal to the underlying racial 



THE LYRIC AND SONG 23 1 

sympathies of the individual or only to those 
shared by the more reflective and imaginative, for 
its range of emotional expression is very wide, but 
it should always appeal to natural and healthy 
sentiment, though it may be admitted that a few 
lyrics of remarkable artistic quality deal with mor- 
bid and perverted themes. The lyric must be brief, 
for it arouses feeling by the presentation in poetic 
form of a simple idea without argument or nar- 
rative. It leaves to more ambitious forms the 
assembling of multifarious details into a unity. 
It is songlike in structure even when not specif- 
ically adapted to the singing voice. The lyric calls 
the soul from its solitude to that communion which 
is psychical life, but each soul responds with its 
own individual voice though each feels the delight 
of sympathy. 

The lyric, therefore, is marked organically, by 
musical movement; rhetorically, by the personal 
figures, apostrophe and interrogation ; grammati- 
cally, by the use of the personal pronouns ; and 
metrically, by end-stopt lines and by the refrain. 
It begins, " Scots wha hae wi Wallace bled," or 
" Rock of Ages, cleft for me," or " Farewell, thou 
art too dear for my possessing," or " Never melt 
away, thou wreath of snow, that art so kind in grav- 
ing me " ; its burden is, " I feel," not " I think." 
It has some of the qualities of the human voice ; 
it penetrates, arouses, or charms. The lyrical 
quality is of the very essence of poetry, since it 



232 THE LYRIC AND SONG 

transfers emotion from the singer to the hearer. 
The lyric is vivified by the personal note, — " the 
keen lyrical cry," as Matthew Arnold called it. It 
must be written under excitement ; frigidity is 
fatal to it. Except in those rare cases where men 
of great poetic powers have written songs which 
were the inspiration of a moment, though the 
result of years of thought and experience of life, 
it must be labored over, for no birth is without 
pain. It must be written under excitement, but 
must have the air of spontaneity. If to a sym- 
pathetic nature some power of musical expression 
in words is given, then we have the lyrical poet. 
That part of the world is his audience which sym- 
pathizes with his feelings. If, as in the case of 
Robert Burns, he appeals to the broad, genial 
emotions which are shared by all humanity, and 
his power of musical expression is of a high order, 
then the whole world is his audience. If, like 
Herrick, his feelings are bounded by a narrow 
horizon, his lovers will be fewer — perhaps only 
men of a certain amount of cultivation or knowl- 
edge of art will find pleasure in reading his verse. 
In a broad sense all lyrics are songs; in a special- 
ized sense, only those lyrics which are set to music 
are songs. For a popular song the tune must be 
not difficult to catch, and not complicated, and 
accordant with the sentiment which, too, must not 
be subtle nor complicated. The time-beat must 
be emphatically marked, and the range within the 



THE LYRIC AND SONG 233 

compass of ordinary voices. These requirements 
seem simple enough, but it is very difficult to meet 
them all, as is evident from the fact that we have 
yet no universally recognized national song. The 
Star-Spangled Banner is altogether too difficult. 
Hail Columbia lacks consecutiveness, and is, if 
anything, too emphatic. In both these and in 
others the diction is artificial. Of song writing, 
Barry Cornwall (Procter), whose songs were favor- 
ites with the last generation, says : " A song should 
be fitted to music, and, in fact, should become better 
for the accompaniment of music ; otherwise it can- 
not be deemed essentially a song. Now, take ten 
out of every twelve lyrics that you find scattered 
over our periodical literature, and if you have an 
ear for music, endeavor to sing them to some well- 
known tune which they will apparently fit ; the 
words will come in, but the accent, the fall of the 
musical phrase, will occur in the wrong place, and 
even if the first verse should go smoothly, the 
probability is that the second or third will halt most 
lamely. The secret of successful song writing is 
the happy combination of a fine musical ear with 
a poetic temperament. The song writer need not 
be a practical musician, but it will assist him won- 
derfully if he be one." 

Mr. Procter seems to take a rather mechanical 
view of his art. The practical rules he might have 
noticed are : To invent a taking refrain, to use few 
words which end in a consonant that closes the 



234 THE LYRIC AND SONG 

mouth, and few sibilants, and to choose words with 
open vowels wherever possible. It may be ques- 
tioned whether a fine musical ear is necessary to a 
song writer. An ear for time and for vocal melodic 
effects is necessary, but that is quite a different 
thing. Shelley rather disliked music, and neither 
Coleridge nor Scott could catch a tune. Yet Scott 
wrote many fine songs ; Shelley and Coleridge were 
masters of verbal melody, and some of Shelley's 
lyrics are well adapted for singing. 

The true song writer needs something besides a 
"poetical temperament and a musical ear," and 
that something is the very thing which makes him 
a song writer. Browning knew much more about 
music than did Tennyson or Charles Kingsley, and 
was a lyric poet, but Break, Break, Break, and 
The Three Fishers are songs in a fuller sense than 
any of Browning's spirited lyrics are. It would 
seem as if the successful song writer must possess 
in addition to his other gifts, a certain folk ele- 
ment or instinctive knowledge of the heart of 
humanity, and a desire to appeal to it. 

As a proof of the rarity of the song writer's gift 
it may be mentioned that during the Civil War, 
when the public mind was in a state of tense ex- 
citement, all our verse-writers naturally were desir- 
ous of writing a patriotic song. Many good lyrics 
were written full of patriotic energy, but except 
Tramp, tramp, tramp, the Boys are Marching, no 
one succeeded in embodying any one of the fea- 



THE LYRIC AND SONG 2$$ 

tures of the war — the march, the bivouac, the camp 
fire, the fight — in a song that expressed what the 
soldiers wished to sing. A song as fine as the Mar- 
seillaise would have been worth many regiments. 1 
Song writing, principally of a gay and amatory 
character, was much cultivated in the south of 
France as early as the tenth century, when the 
poetry of the North or Frankish part of the country 

1 In the end the soldiers of the 12th Massachusetts Regiment 
improvised a rude chorus, — 

"John Brown's body lies moldering in the grave. 
His soul goes marching on. 
Glory ! glory ! hallelujah, his soul goes marching on." 

This goes to a camp-meeting tune. Unmeaning verses were 
extemporized, and shouting this primitive war paean was of 
great effect in keeping up the spirits and morale of the troops. 
Harry Brownell afterwards wrote some words to the air, and Mrs. 
Howe's fine Battle Hymn of the Republic goes to the same tune. 
Just before the Battle, Mother, Tra??ip, tra?np, tramp, and the 
Battle Cry of Freedom were written and the music to them com- 
posed by George F. Root of Chicago. The last comes near to pos- 
sessing the qualities of a great battle song. Marching through 
Georgia was composed by Henry C. Work of Chicago, who is the 
author also of Wake Nicodemus, The Kingdom 's Coming, and Baby- 
lon's Fallen, the first the finest song produced in America. John S. 
Gibbons wrote We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thou- 
sand more, which, as sung by the Hutchinson family, was wonderfully 
effective. In the South, Dixie, set to a stirring tune, and Maryland, 
my Maryland, to the noble air of Lauriger Horatius, were effect- 
ive songs. General Albert Pike of Arkansas wrote the best words 
to the last. The great power of songs in concentrating and inten- 
sifying sentiment was never better exemplified. The Northern songs 
had more the quality of folk literature than the Southern ones, and 
perhaps it is as well that none are so good as to be immortal. 



236 THE LYRIC AND SONG 

was largely epical in character, passing over in the 
course of time into the romantic. These influences 
extended to England, but lyrical poetry did not 
develop there till the sixteenth century, and its 
culmination coincides largely with that of the great 
dramatic period. It was governed almost entirely 
by Italian models, for song is indigenous and per- 
manent in Italy. Wyatt and Surrey introduced 
not only the sonnet but the song into their country. 
The sonnet had much more of a lyrical character 
in England in the Elizabethan age than it has now. 
The form then embodied an energetic emotion and 
not merely a description or some quiet moralizing 
as is so frequently the case at present. Spenser's, 
Sidney's, and Shakespeare's sonnets are almost in- 
variably lyrical in expression. The singing voice, 
too, seems to have been a more general gift than 
it is now. The Elizabethan age was lyrical as well 
as dramatic, and the lyrical impulse persisted after 
the dramatic impulse was exhausted in the seven- 
teenth century. Songs, some of them of great musi- 
cal beauty, were inserted in many of the plays as the 
natural culmination of the dialogue. The lyrics 
of the time, seen in Professor Arber's reprints and 
Mr. Bullen's two volumes entitled Lyrics from the 
Song Books of the Elizabethan Age are nearly all of 
songlike quality. Mr. Symonds says of them : " For 
the purposes of singing they are exactly adequate, 
being substantial enough to sustain and animate 
the notes, and yet so slight as not to overburden 



THE LYRIC AND SONG 237 

them with too much reflection and emotion. We 
feel that they have arisen spontaneously from the 
natural, facile marrying of musical words to musi- 
cal phrases ; they are the right and fitting counter- 
part to vocal and instrumental melody, limpid, 
liquid, never surcharging the notes which need 
them as a vehicle with complexities of fancy, 
involutions of thought, or the disturbing tyranny 
of vehement passions." In the preface to one of 
the song books, Byrd — there is something ap- 
propriate in the name — wrote, " Benign reader, 
here is offered unto thy courteous acceptance music 
of sundry sorts, and to content divers humours." 
So we have sacred songs, love songs in every key, 
pastorals, humorous songs, originals, and transla- 
tions from the Italian. The following illustrates 
the chivalrous note, at once simple and elevated, of 
the love songs : — 

There is a lady sweet and kind ; 
Was never face so pleasing to my mind : 
I did but see her passing by, 
And yet I love her till I die. 

Her gesture, motion, and her smiles, 
Her wit, her voice, my heart beguiles, 
Beguiles my heart I know not why, 
But yet I love her till I die. 

Her free behavior, winning looks, 
Will make a lawyer burn his books. 



238 THE LYRIC AND SONG 

I touched her not, alas not I, 
And yet I love her till I die. 

Cupid is winged and doth range 
Her country so my love doth change, 
But change she earth or change she sky, 
Yet will I love her till I die. 

The expression "free behavior" is used in the 
old sense, and means a kind, genial manner. 
So, the knight in Chaucer " loved Fredom and 
Curteisye." 

The following based upon Horace's ode, " Justum 
et tenacem propositi virum," is generally ascribed 
to Francis Bacon ; if with justice, the Shakespeare- 
Bacon proposition needs no further refutation : — 

The man of life upright, 

Whose guiltless heart is free 
From all dishonest deeds 

Or thought of Vanity, 

The man whose silent days 

In harmless joys are spent, 
Whom hopes cannot delude 

Nor sorrow discontent, 

That man needs neither towers 

Nor armor for defense, 
Nor secret vaults to fly 

From thunder's violence. 



THE LYRIC AND SONG 239 

He only, can behold 

With unaffrighted eyes 
The horrors of the deep 

And terrors of the skies. 

Thus scorning all the cares 
That faith or fortune brings, 

He makes the heaven his book, 
His wisdom heavenly things. 

Good thoughts his only friends, 

His wealth a well-spent age, 
The Earth his sober inn, 

And quiet pilgrimage. 

The songs in the dramas of the period and many 
of those printed in volumes of poetry have the 
same ease and naturalness as these, but usually 
much more rhythmic and emotional life. The 
songs in Shakespeare's plays illustrate the quali- 
ties of the true lyric. Among the best known is 
the song of Amiens in As You Like It ; — 

Under the greenwood tree, 
Who loves to lie with me, 
And tune his merry note 
Unto the sweet bird's throat — 
Come hither, come hither, come hither I 
Here shall he see 

No enemy 
But winter and rough weather. 



24O THE LYRIC AND SONG 

Who doth ambition shun, 
And loves to live i' the sun, 
Seeking the food he eats 
And pleased with what he gets, 
Come hither, come hither, come hither ! 
Here shall he see 

No enemy 
But winter and rough weather. 

The other song of the same actor is : — 

Blow, blow, thou winter wind ; 
Thou art not so unkind 
As man's ingratitude. 
Thy tooth is not so keen, 
Because thou art not seen, 
Although thy breath be rude. 
Heigh ho ! sing heigh ho ! unto the green holly ! 
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly ; 
Then heigh ho — the holly ! 
This life is most jolly. 

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky ; 
That dost not bite so nigh 

As benefits forgot ; 
Though thou the waters warp, 
Thy sting is not so sharp 
As friend remembered not. 
Heigh ho ! sing heigh ho ! unto the green holly ! 
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly, etc. 

Ariel's songs in the Tempest, Full Fathom five thy 
Father lies and Where the Bee sucks, there suck I 
are as dainty and spritelike as the fairy himself, 



THE LYRIC AXD SONG 2/j.I 

and the dirge in Cyvibeline, Fear no more the Heat 
the Sun, is so appropriate to the setting that it is 
difficult to understand how one hundred years later 
Mr. William Collins's lines were substituted for it. 
For instance, Shakespeare wrote in his manly 
way the song that is put into the mouths of the 
strong, young men : — 

Fear no more the heat o' the sun. 

Nor the furious winter's rages ; 
Thou thy worldly task hast done, 

Home are gone and ta'en thy wages ; 
Golden lads and girls all must, 
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust. 

The song ends : — 

Quiet consummation have, 
And renowned be thy grave. 

This dirge is perhaps not so beautiful as the one 
sung by the clown in Twelfth Night, but it has the 
ring of hearty, honest feeling; the other is roman- 
tic as it might well be, since the clown merely sings 
it to gratify the Duke, who loves music in a luxu- 
rious way. It begins : — 

Come away, come away, death ; 

And in sad cypress let me be laid ; 
Fly away, fly away, breath : 

I am slain by a fair, cruel maid. 
My shroud of white, stuck all with yew, 
O prepare it. 

FORMS OF ENG. POETRY — 1 6 



242 THE LYRIC AND SONG 

My part of death, no one so true, 
Did share it. 

But the real feeling and simplicity of the dirge 
in Cymbeline is far above Mr. Collins's verses, 
smooth and musical as they are. He wrote in the 
eighteenth century : — 

To fair Fidele's grassy tomb 
Soft maids and village hinds shall bring 

Each opening sweet of earliest bloom, 
And rifle all the breathing spring. 

No wailing ghost shall dare appear 
To vex with shrieks this quiet grove, 

But shepherd lads assemble here 
And melting virgins own their love. 

Each lonely scene shall thee restore, 

For thee the tear be duly shed, 
Beloved till life could charm no more, 

And mourned till pity's self be dead. 

These are very beautiful verses, but compared 
to the original they illustrate the difference between 
the real and the simulated in art. One of the 
young men in Cymbeline — princes ignorant of 
their birth — says, — 

with fairest flowers, 
Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele, 
I'll sweeten thy sad grave : Thou shalt not lack 
The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose ; nor 



THE LYRIC AND SONG 243 

The azured harebell like thy veins, no, nor 
The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander 
Out-sweetened not thy breath : the ruddock would 
With charitable bill — ... 

. . . bring thee all this ; 
Yea, and furred moss besides, when flowers are none, 
To winter-ground thy corse. 

The other answers : — 

Prithee, have done ; 
And do not play in wench-like words with that 
Which is so serious. Let us bury him 
And not protract with admiration what 
Is now due debt. 

Mr. William Collins must have read these words, 
yet he proceeds to do exactly what Guiderius warns 
him not to do : — 

play in wench-like words with that 
Which is so serious. 

Again, when Arviragus proposes to sing the dirge, 
Guiderius says : — 

I cannot sing : I'll weep, and word it with thee, 
For notes of sorrow out of tune are worse 
Than priests and fanes that lie. 

This, too, might have arrested the pen of the 
redacteur, himself a protestant against the conven- 
tional manner of the followers of Pope. There are 
many who do not like the whole truth, and nothing 



244 THE LYRIC AND SONG 

but the truth, in art. They love the partial truth — 
the truth plus so many fashionable ornaments that 
they do not feel the rebuke which sincerity always 
gives to affectation. For them the statement : — 

Golden lads and girls all must, 

As chimney-sweepers, come to dust, 

is altogether too brutal and democratic ; but — 

Beloved till life could charm no more 
And mourned till pity's self be dead, 

is charmingly pathetic. It must be admitted that 
there is something very taking in insincerity and 
affectation if it is not compared with truth. So 
powerful is art that it justifies itself and sometimes 
excuses deceit. But when based on reality it is 
the great interpreter, its beauty intensified and 
its significance deepened by sincerity, earnestness, 
vision. 

The dramatists of the Elizabethan period treated 
classic themes with lyrical freedom. The follow- 
ing is from the play, Alexander' s Feast, by John 
Lyly : — 

Cupid and my Campaspe played 

At cards for kisses ; Cupid paid. 

He stakes his quiver, bows, and arrows, 

His mother's doves and team of sparrows ; 

Loses them, too ; then down he throws 

The coral of his lip — the rose 

Growing on's cheek (but none knows how) 

With these the crystal of his brow, 



THE LYRIC AND SONG 245 

And then the dimple of his chin ; 
And these did my Campaspe win. 
At last he set her both his eyes ; 
She won, and Cupid blind did rise. 
Oh, love, has she done this to thee, 
What shall, alas, become of me ? 

Ben Jonson was ponderous enough, — physi- 
cally and mentally, — but occasionally his touch 
was as light as that of the born lyrists. Songs 
formed a part of those complicated spectacular 
pageants called masks, which were so popular at 
the court of James I. and his son Charles I. The 
following is from Cynthia's Revels : — 

Queen and huntress chaste and fair, 

Now the sun is laid to sleep, 
Seated in thy silver chair, 

State in wonted manner keep ; — 
Hesperus entreats thy light, 
Goddess excellently bright. 

Earth, let not thy envious shade 

Dare itself to interpose, 
Cynthia's shining orb was made 

Heaven to clear when day did close : 
Bless us then with wished sight, 
Goddess excellently bright. 

Lay thy bow of pearl apart, 
And thy crystal-shining quiver, 

Give unto the flying hart 

Space to breathe, how short soever ; 



246 the lyric and song 

Thou that mak'st a day of might, 
Goddess excellently bright. 

Perhaps his most attractive song is the well-known 
one : — 

Drink to me only with thine eyes, 

And I will pledge with mine, 
Or leave a kiss but in the cup 

And I'll not look for wine. 
The thirst that from the soul doth rise 

Doth ask a cup divine, 
But might I of Jove's nectar sup 

I would not change for thine. 

The verses on Mary Sidney, Lady Pembroke, 
the mother of William Herbert, Shakespeare's 
patron, to whom some of the sonnets were once 
supposed to be addressed, were erroneously at- 
tributed to Ben Jonson, but are by William Browne. 
They are well known, but the turn of the last three 
lines of the first stanza is so perfect that no excuse 
need be made for quoting them : — 

Underneath this marble hearse 

Lies the subject of all verse ; 

Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother. 

Death, ere thou hast slain another, 
Wise and good and fair as she, 
Time shall throw his dart at thee. 

All the devices of the art, the refrain, the repe- 
tend, and the chorus, were charmingly employed 



THE LYRIC AND SONG 247 

in the songs of the period. The refrain consists of 
words repeated at intervals, but having a grammati- 
cal connection with the context. The repetend con- 
sists of words repeated in immediate sequence for 
emotional or musical emphasis, and the chorus of 
words — sometimes unmeaning ones — repeated at 
the end of the stanza. Thus Dekker sings : — 

Art thou poor yet hast thou golden slumbers ? 

O sweet content ! 
Art thou rich yet is thy mind perplexed ? 

O punishment ! 
Dost laugh to see how fools are vexed 
To add to golden numbers, golden numbers ? 
O sweet content, O sweet, O sweet, content ! 
Work apace, apace, apace, 
Honest labor bears a lovely face. 
Then hey, noney, noney ! hey noney, noney. 

Canst drink the waters of the crisped spring ? 

O sweet content ! 
Swim'st thou in wealth, yet sink'st in thine own tears? 

O punishment ! 
Then he that patiently Want's burden bears, 
No burden bears, but is a king, a king. 
O sweet content, O sweet, O sweet, content ! 

Work apace, apace, apace, 

Honest labor wears a lovely face. 
Then hey noney, noney ! hey noney, noney. 

The words "Golden numbers, golden numbers," 
are a repetend. " O sweet content " and " O pun- 



248 THE LYRIC AND SONG 

ishment " are refrains, and the words " Then hey 
noney, noney ! " are rather a poor chorus. Sir 
Thomas Wyatt uses the refrain very skillfully in 
his verses Forget Not Yet, and in the following 
addressed to a lady : — 

And wilt thou leave me thus ? 
Say nay, say nay — for shame ; 
To save thee from the blame 
Of all my grief and grame, 
And wilt thou leave me thus ? 
Say nay — say nay. 

And wilt thou leave me thus 
That hath loved thee so long 
In wealth and woe among, 
And is thy heart so strong 
As for to leave me thus ? 
Say nay — say nay. 

The lyric poetry of the Elizabethan age drew its 
inspiration from Italy, but at once began to develop 
in a free and natural manner. Wyatt and Surrey 
were the first to echo Italian song in England. 
Among the forms introduced were the madrigal, 
the canzone or ode, and the sonnet. Although the 
writers were scholars and the lyric is the poetry of 
culture, the technical names were used with little 
discrimination, and a poem was called a song, 
an ode, a madrigal, or a sonnet, with little refer- 
ence to the original significance of the title. A 
madrigal, for instance, is an epigrammatic lyric 



THE LYRIC AND SONG 249 

normally consisting of eight or eleven lines, rhym- 
ing abb, ace, dd, or abb, ace, add, ee. In Wyatt's 
poems a number approximate to the true form, but 
only two are exact. But not more than one quarter 
of the poems called by the Elizabethans " madri- 
gals " even approximate to the Italian form, and 
the term was applied to any short poems set to 
music. As time went on, novel meters were in- 
vented, combinations of long and short lines and 
new rhyme schemes tending sometimes to the arti- 
ficial, but sometimes of happy freshness and vivac- 
ity. The Elizabethans " borrowed the garb but 
not the clothes " of the Italians, and the foreign 
models furnished hints to be developed, and not 
always forms to be slavishly copied. They ad- 
hered, however, to regular stanzas, almost a neces- 
sity for verses to be sung, unless by a trained 
chorus. The following "madrigal," 1593, is in 
pure Italian form except that the lines should all 
be of the same number of feet : — 

Say gentle nymphs that tread these mountains, 
Whilst sweetly you sit playing, 
Saw you my Daphne straying 

Along your crystal fountains ? 
If that you chance to meet her, 
Kiss her and kindly greet her ; 

Then these sweet garlands take her, 
And say from me I never will forsake her. 



250 THE LYRIC AND SONG 

Some idea of the variety and melody of the 
meters may be gathered from the songs already 
cited. The impression would be strengthened by 
reading more, especially those of Shakespeare. 
The meters seem to have been hit upon in a fortu- 
nate moment and not studiously invented. What 
could be happier than the movement of the follow- 
ing from a play of Robert Greene's, about 1590 : — 

Ah, what is love ? It is a pretty thing, 
As sweet unto a shepherd as a king ; 

And sweeter too : 
For kings have cares that wait upon a crown, 
. And cares can make the sweetest love to frown. 
Ah then, ah then ! 
If country loves such sweet desires gain, 
What lady would not love a shepherd swain ? 

His flocks are folded, he comes home at night, 
As merry as a king in his delight, 

And merrier too : 
For kings bethink them what the state require, 
Where shepherds careless carol by the fire. 

Ah then, ah then ! 
If country loves such sweet desires gain, 
What lady would not love a shepherd swain ? 

Frequently, however, the Elizabethans held a 
closer and more personal relation to nature than 
the pastoral fiction admits. The following sung 
by Thomas Heywood, from a play acted about 
1605, has the merit of simplicity and directness : — 



THE LYRIC AND SONG 25 1 

Pack clouds away, and welcome day ; 

With night we banish sorrow : 
Sweet air, blow soft, mount, larks, aloft, 

To give my love good-morrow ! 
Wings from the wind to please her mind, 

Notes from the lark I'll borrow. 
Bird, prune thy wing — nightingale, sing 

To give my love good-morrow ; 
To give my love good-morrow, 
Notes from them all I'll borrow. 

Wake from thy nest, robin red-breast, 

Sing, birds, in every furrow, 
And from each hill let music shrill 

Give my fair love good-morrow ! 
Blackbird and thrush in every bush, 

Stare, linnet, and cock-sparrow, 
You pretty elves, amongst yourselves 

Sing my fair love good-morrow. 
To give my love good-morrow, 
Sing, birds, in every furrow. 

The "shepherd swain" referred to in Greene's 
song is not a real shepherd like those that "fed 
their flocks by night," but the conventionalized 
shepherd of " pastoral " poetry dating from the 
days of Virgil, if not from a much earlier period. 
The " pastoral fiction " in which men and women 
appear as impossible shepherds and shepherdesses 
feeding impossible flocks in artificial meadows or 
sheltering them in artificial groves, has colored 



252 THE LYRIC AND SONG 

poetry, prose, and the drama, giving us some 
charming pictures with a very remote but very 
delicate relation to real life. To say nothing of 
lyrics like Marlowe's Come live with me and be my 
Love, Spenser's Shephearde's Calendar, or Fletcher's 
drama, The Faithful Shepherdess, and many other 
poems where the machinery is of strict pastoral 
construction, the pastoral tone, here and there, 
gives charm to As You Like It, Milton's Comus, 
and Sidney's Arcadia. The pastoral fiction and 
the romantic, chivalric fiction were two literary 
modes of representing life in beautiful and fanci- 
ful forms now lost. The pastoral fiction appeared 
occasionally in songs for nearly two centuries and 
was not entirely disused till after the French 
Revolution. 

After we leave the sixteenth century, the char- 
acter of the lyric as well as that of the drama 
gradually changes. There is of course continuity ; 
we cannot say that at any one point the sixteenth 
century song becomes the seventeenth century 
lyric. The song from Milton's pastoral mask, 
Arcades, is as fresh and musical as any of the 
songs of the Elizabethans, and it was not written 
till the second quarter of the century was well 
under way : — 

O'er the smooth enameled green, 
Where no print of step hath been, 
Follow me as I sing, 
And touch the warbled string, 



THE LYRIC AND SONG 253 

Under the shady roof 

Of branching elm, star-proof, * 

Follow me. 
I will bring you where she sits, 
Clad in splendor as befits 

Her deity. 
Such a rural queen 
All Arcadia hath not seen. 

The songs in Fletcher's dramas and in Jon- 
son's masks are inferior to those in Shakespeare's 
only, and Fletcher died in 1625 and Jonson in 
1637. Still the time was growing reflective. The 
questions of civil and personal right, and of re- 
ligious duty which drew Milton from the worship 
of poetry, and removes him by so wide an inter- 
val from the no less pure-minded Spenser, were 
gradually assuming more and more importance in 
the minds of men of the first intellectual rank. 
The enthusiasm with which men first met the 
new learning and assimilated the beautiful forms 
of the Renaissance changed to the sober admira- 
tion of fuller scholarship not untinctured with 
professionalism. When the new continent was 
explored and charted, it lost some of the full 
romantic beauty the first discoverers found, and 
this can never meet the eyes of later voyagers. 

1 The English elm is really " star-proof." The adjective could 
not be applied to an American elm. Poets of the rank of Milton, 
Wordsworth, and Tennyson do not use words because they sound 
pretty, unless they are essentially true. 



254 THE LYRIC AND SONG 

For these general reasons we find the Eliza- 
bethan lyric losing its early spontaneity in the 
latter part of the seventeenth century. In techni- 
cal variety and perfection of workmanship, there 
is no falling off for many years, but the thought 
is more epigrammatic and mature, and painstaking 
is more evident. Herrick, 1 591-1674, is unri- 
valed in the construction of lyrical meters, but 
the singing quality is less evident in his lines than 
in those that have been quoted from his prede- 
cessors. The quality of dainty precision begins 
to take the place of the quality of spontaneity. 
He sings less like a bird and more like a trained 
vocalist, there is more intellectuality and less sym- 
bolism or musical meaning in his verse. The 
following extracts from Herrick's Hesperides will 
illustrate the gradual change of tone : — 

Cherry Ripe 

Cherry-ripe, ripe, ripe, I cry 
Full and fair ones ; come and buy ; 
If so be you ask me where 
They do grow ? I answer there 
Where my Julia's lips do smile ; 
There's the land or cherry isle, 
Whose plantations fully show 
All the year where cherries grow. 

Upon Julia's Hair filled with Dew 

Dew sat on Julia's hair, 
And spangled too, 



THE LYRIC AND SONG 255 

Like leaves that laden are 

With trembling dew, 
Or glittered to my sight 

As when the beams 
Have their reflected light 

Danced by the streams. 

These are as joyous and unpremeditated as any 
of Greene's or Dekker's or Shakespeare's songs. 
Gather ye Rosebuds while ye may has, too, all the 
melody of the early Elizabethans. The following, 
however, contain a neat little sentiment in dainty 
form. Their note is more modern, the writer has 
felt more highly developed literary impulses than 
those which molded his predecessors in the six- 
teenth century: — 

His Prayer to Ben Jonson 

When I a verse shall make, 
Know I have prayed thee, 

For old religion's sake, 
Saint Ben, to aid me. 

Make the way smooth for me, 

When I, thy Herrick 
Honoring thee, on my knee 

Offer my lyric. 

Candles I'll give to thee 

And a new altar ; 
And thou, Saint Ben, shalt be 

Writ in my psalter. 



256 THE LYRIC AND SONG 

His Lachrim^e 

Call me no more, 

As heretofore, 
The music of a feast ; 

Since now, alas 

The mirth that was 
In me is dead or ceased. 

Before I went 

To banishment 
Into the loathed West, 

I could rehearse 

A lyric verse, 
And speak it with the best 

But time, Ai me ! 

Has laid I see 
My organ fast asleep, 

And turned my voice 

Into the noise 
Of those that sit and weep. 

Herrick is so consummate a lyric artist that it 
is hardly fair to quote only verses which illustrate 
his wit and metrical ingenuity. CorinncCs Going 
A-Maying, or To Daffodils, or To the Virgins, illus- 
trate his delightful talent more fully. The last 
runs : — 

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, 

Old Time is still a-flying, 
And this same flower that smiles to-day, 
To-morrow will be dying. 



THE LYRIC AND SONG 2 57 

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun, 

The higher he's a-getting, 
The sooner will his race be run, 

The nearer he's to setting. 

That age is best which is the first 
When youth and blood are warmer, 

But being spent the worse and worst 
Times still succeed the former. 

Then be not coy, but use your time 

And, while ye may, go marry ; 
For having lost but once your prime, 

You may forever tarry. 

The tendency of the seventeenth-century lyrists 
to fanciful meters is exemplified in the poems of 
Francis Quarles, many of which are extremely in- 
geniously and intricately rhymed and by no means 
destitute of formal beauty. In one of them, en- 
titled Hieroglyphics, the first lines of the stanzas are 
printed in italics, and if read consecutively make 
a neat little rhyming poem by themselves. In 
another the lines on the right hand are indented 
so as to make a set of steps. This is called the 
Ladder of the Heart. One of George Herbert's is 
printed in the form of an altar, and another, Easter 
Wings, is a rude approximation in form to the out- 
stretched wings of a bird. These eccentricities do 
not belong to literary technic, and may be classed 
with rhymed acrostics, poems where the first words 
of the lines form a sentence, and other curiosities 

FORMS OF ENG. POETRY — 1 7 



258 THE LYRIC AND SONG 

of prosody as examples of odd ingenuity, — metri- 
cal science gone mad. 

It must be steadily borne in mind that the change 
in lyrical tone during the seventeenth century was 
very gradual. We continually hear echoes of the 
Elizabethan lyric that sound as fresh and natural 
as the original song until we reach the age of 
Dryden. The decline of the drama was much 
more rapid. From Shakespeare through Fletcher, 
Middleton, Tourneur, and the rest, to Shirley, the 
descent occupied at most but forty years, and the 
drama of the Restoration is separated from that 
of 1600 by a greater gulf than separates the lyric 
of to-day from that contemporary with As You 
Like It. One reason for this is that a drama is 
dependent for success on a numerous clientele 
whose taste changes every generation, and lyrics 
may please only a select and scattered few whose 
literary standard remains high and unchanged. 
Another reason, no doubt, is that the disfavor into 
which the acting of plays fell led to a temporary 
legal interdiction. Again, a lyric is a slight thing, 
the coming to the surface of a musical thought 
from the heart of an individual, whereas a drama 
is produced only in a dramatic age. Through the 
seventeenth century, verses of true lyrical charm 
continued to appear. We find lyrical music in 
Edmund Waller's On a Girdle and Go, Lovely Rose, 
Lovelace's To Lucasta on going to the Wars, Cra- 
shaw's Wishes to his Supposed Mistress, Sir John 



THE LYRIC AND SONG 259 

Suckling's Constancy, George Herbert's Virtue, and 
many others. But at the end we are landed in the 
eighteenth century, when, in 1780, Blake could 
write with no cynical undervaluing of the song of 
his day in Songs addressed to the Muses : — - 

How have you left the ancient love 
That bards of old enjoyed in you ! 

The languid strings do scarcely move, 
The sound is forced, the notes are few. 

In the seventeenth-century lyric verse, the note 
of the "vers de societe" gallant and courtly 
compliment not unmixed with persiflage from some 
gay and witty gentleman to a radiant beauty, a 
queen of society and temporary queen of his heart, 
begins to be heard. Society verse, though of course 
lyrical, has a distinctive tone of its own, enough 
so to warrant making it the subject of a separate 
chapter. The sound of this note, not as yet very 
distinct, heard in the verse of Lovelace and Suck- 
ling, in whom much of the sincerity of the Eliza- 
bethans survives, and quite distinctly in Prior's 
Poems on Several Occasions in the last decade of 
the century, is one of the indications of the wear- 
ing out of the original lyrical impulse. 

In the eighteenth century enthusiasm was consid- 
ered an undesirable and dangerous quality. Good 
sense and moderation were esteemed in literature 
and character. The classics, "the ancients," as they 



26o THE LYRIC AND SONG 

were called, were regarded as standard models, not 
as sources of inspiration free to express itself in 
novel and luxuriant forms. Religious belief was 
a good-natured acquiescence in an institution of 
respectable antiquity or a yielding to a somber 
Calvinism, or, sometimes, a combination of both. 
Collateral with these was a very unattractive form 
of cynicism, not earnest enough to be nobly pessi- 
mistic nor imaginative enough to be mystical. All 
these characteristics are hostile to the free and 
joyous abandon of lyrical song and hardly less so 
to the intimate self-disclosure of the reflective lyric, 
and we find little of either in the age when Pope 
and Dr. Johnson are the admired authorities in 
poetry. The songs in Gay's The Beggar's Opera are 
too trifling to be dignified as lyrics though they are 
less coarse than those in Dryden's plays. They rise 
but little above the ordinary music-hall or " variety- 
show " song, and lack the popular element which 
gives some of the latter heartiness and signifi- 
cance. Goldsmith, a balladist from his boyhood, 
puts a couple of pretty verses into the Vicar of 
Wakefield, and some of Sheridan's in the Duenna 
are sprightly and, in their place, amusing. Gold- 
smith's lines contrasted with some of the Scotch 
ballads on the same situation show the difference 
between sentimentalism, or a fanciful treatment 
of a pathetic subject, and vigorous, imaginative 
realization. He treats the most tragic motif with 
no dramatic sincerity : — 



THE LYRIC AND SONG 26 1 

When lovely woman stoops to folly 
And finds too late that men betray, 

What charm can soothe her melancholy, 
What art can wash her guilt away ? 

The only art her guilt to cover, 

To hide her shame from every eye, 

To give repentance to her lover 
And wring his bosom is — to die. 

The theme of these sweetly modulated quatrains 
is general and the terms, as, " lovely woman," 
"folly," "melancholy," "guilt," "repentance," 
"wring his bosom," are all conventional — the stock 
words of the poets of a cultured age. In the Scotch 
song O Waly, Waly, the anguish of the betrayed 
girl finds direct personal realization in concrete 
terms. The difference is precisely the same as has 
been noted between Shakespeare's dirge in Cym- 
beline and Mr. Collins's version. One is of the 
eighteenth century, the other of the sixteenth. 

waly, 1 waly, up the bank, 

And waly, waly, down the brae, 
And waly, waly, yon burn-side, 
Where I and my love wont to gae. 

1 leaned my back unto an aik, 

I thought it was a trusty tree ; 
But first it bowed, and syne it brake, 
Sae my true love did lyghtlie me. 

1 Waly, a word meaning, alas= welaway. 



262 THE LYRIC AND SONG 

O waly, waly, but love be bonnie 
A little time while it is new ; 

But when 'tis auld it waxeth cauld 
And fades awa like morning dew. 

O wherefore should I busk my head ? 

Or wherefore should I kame my hair ? 
For my true love has me forsook, 

And says he '11 never love me mair. 

Now Arthur's seat shall be my bed, 
The sheets shall ne'er be fyled by me, 

Saint Anton's well shall be my drink, 
Since my true love has forsaken me. 

Martinmas wind when wilt thou blaw, 
And shake the green leaves off the tree? 

O gentle death when wilt thou come ? 
For of my life I am wearie. 

Tis not the frost that freezes fell, 
Nor blawing snaws inclemencie, 

'Tis nae sic cauld that makes me cry, 
But my love's heart grown cauld to me. 

When we came in by Glasgow town, 
We were a comely sight to see, 

My love was clad in the black velvet, 
And I mysel in cramasie. 

But had I wist before I kissed, 
That love had been sae ill to win, 

I'd locked my heart in a case of gold 
And pinned it with a silver pin. 



THE LYRIC AND SONG 263 

Oh, oh ! if my young babe were born 

And set upon the nurse's knee, 
And I myself were dead and gone ! 

And the green grass growin' over me. 

Dr. Johnson's manner was conventional and 
his philosophy practical and limited. But his 
genuine sympathy with unpretentious worth makes 
his verses on Dr. Levett, the " friend of the poor," 
true poetry, though a lament rather than a lyric. 

Well tried through many a varying year, 
See Levett to the grave descend, 

Officious, innocent, sincere, 

Of every friendless name the friend. 

Yet still he fills Affection's eye, 
Obscurely wise and coarsely kind, 

Nor, lettered Arrogance, deny 
Thy praise to merit unrefined 1 

When fainting nature called for aid, 
And hovering death prepared the blow, 

His vigorous remedy displayed 

The power of art without the show. 

In misery's darkest cavern known, 

His useful care was ever nigh, 
Where hopeless anguish poured his groan, 

And lonely want retired to die. 

No summons mocked by chill delay, 
No petty gain disdained by pride — 

The modest wants of every day 
The toil of every day supplied. 



264 THE LYRIC AND SONG 

His virtues walked their narrow round, 
Nor made a pause, nor left a void, 

And sure the Eternal Master found 
His single talent well employed. 

The busy day — the peaceful night, 

Unfelt, uncounted, glided by; 
His frame was firm — his powers were bright 

Though now his eightieth year was nigh. 

Then with no fiery throbbing pain 

No cold gradations of decay, 
Death broke at once the vital chain 
And freed his soul the nearest way. 

In spite of some artificialities of diction like 
" cold gradations of decay," " hovering death pre- 
pared the blow," the writer's " grand old wisdom 
of sincerity " makes the figure of the humble 
practitioner distinct and significant, as much so as 
that of Dr. Primrose. The phrase " no cold grada- 
tions of decay " is in the happiest form of John- 
sonese and fills the line admirably. 

Even to enumerate the songs of Scotland would 
require many pages. That in a narrow strip of 
land, less than one hundred and fifty miles wide 
from sea to sea, men and women should for at 
least two hundred years compose songs and tunes 
in profusion, a large proportion of which are 
marked by lyrical beauty and are at once popular 
and poetic, is a remarkable phenomenon. The 



THE LYRIC AND SONG 265 

people there are intensely though locally patriotic 
and are characterized by combativeness, adherence 
to preconceived ideas, and a hard, unyielding grip 
on the objective world. Their temperament seems 
as far removed as possible from what we usually 
consider artistic. But their song is delicately 
modulated and ranges from the plaintive through 
the gay and humorous to the broadly and coarsely 
realistic. To a great extent it is independent of 
literary fashions or poetic schools. Its authors 
came from all classes of society ; it is written by 
farmers and shepherds like Burns and Hogg, or by 
gentlemen and ladies, like Walter Scott and Lady 
Nairn and Lady Ann Lindsay, but it is always racy 
of the soil, and in the line of the old tradition. 
Scottish song is by no means entirely dependent 
on Burns, for his work was largely filling out 
snatches of old songs, the words of which had 
become confused or partly forgotten, with a line 
here and there or a stanza or two of remarkable 
fitness. Auld Lang Syne, My Love is like a Red, 
Red Rose, and many others of his best-known 
songs are really " old jewels reset," but the setting 
is of exquisite workmanship. In no case did 
Burns invent a tune or even a meter ; he trans- 
muted old material as Shakespeare dramatized old 
stories. He is the best example in proof of the 
theory that folk-song, after repetition by gener- 
ations, may be lifted by an inspired bard into the 
realm of permanent literature. Hardly less great 



266 THE LYRIC AND SONG 

as a realistic satirist, it is as a song writer that he 
is supreme. It is necessary to mention only the 
names of Duncan Gray came Jiere to Woo, The 
Bruce of Bannockburn, The Banks o Doon, High- 
land Mary, Farewell to Nancy, or in fact of any 
but three or four among his two hundred songs, to 
certify his preeminence. His lyrics not written for 
singing, like the Address to the Deil, Death and 
Dr. Hornbook, To a Mountain Daisy, To a Mouse, 
are no less admirable. The form and the phrase 
correspond to the sentiment, "whether tears or 
laughter are to be moved." A generous love 
of humanity, unknown to academic letters, and of 
nature, unknown to the poets of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, with the possible exception of Cowper, lies in 
his heart and informs his verse. His humor if 
sometimes broad is never unwholesome, and his wit 
finds the fitting phrase with unerring tact. After 
the lapse of a century and a quarter his songs are 
sung oftener than are those of any other poet. 

Walter Scott loved the local songs of his country- 
men as much as Burns did and transcribed them 
in the spirit of the literary man. Bonnie Dundee, 
Lochinvar, Pibroch of Donuil Dhu, the Hunting 
Song, and the Lament of Duncan, as well as his 
more extended ballads, testify to his love for the 
songs of his countryside, though he could not, 
like Burns, give them immortality by the incommu- 
nicable touch of genius while retaining unimpaired 
their Doric simplicity and vigor. Bonnie Dundee 



THE LYRIC AND SONG 267 

might have been written by Burns, but Scott's 
other songs are of a different class from those of 
the untaught poet, whose music was echoed more 
truly by the writer of Annie Laurie fifty years 
later. Another Scotsman, Thomas Campbell, gave 
evidence of the lyric gift in the Battle of the Baltic 
and Holienlinden. These are English poems, but 
Scottish song has never been silent in its native 
country. 

In the nineteenth century the lyrical element 
was dominant in English poetry. The excitement 
of feeling which was aroused by the French Revo- 
lution naturally sought a more personal manner of 
expression than the formalism of the eighteenth 
century afforded. A broader humanity and a 
more sincere and simple relation to nature charac- 
terized the thinking of educated men. Wordsworth, 
though a didactic and reflective poet, cultivated the 
simple and popular measures of the ballads and 
folk songs. To disclose intimate and individual 
emotion and the world as it appeared from the 
personal point of view was felt to be the function 
of poetry, and this feeling at once gives verse the 
lyrical tone. Moore, whose songs were such favor- 
ites with our grandmothers, is lyrical but not sin- 
cere ; the sentiment of his verse is artificial. In his 
lines on the death of Sheridan, the brilliant wit 
and orator abandoned by his aristocratic friends 
on his squalid deathbed, his bedclothes and even 
his corpse seized by the hounds of the law, hot 



268 THE LYRIC AND SONG 

indignation makes the lines of the petted parlor 
singer thrill with genuine feeling : — 

O, it sickens the heart to see bosoms so hollow, 

And friendship so false in the great and high born, 

To think what a long line of titles may follow 
The relics of him who died friendless and lorn. 

How proud they can press to the funeral array 

Of him whom they shunned in his sickness and sorrow, 

How bailiffs shall take his last blanket to-day 

Whose pall shall be held up by nobles to-morrow. 

Was this then the fate of that high-gifted man, 
The pride of the palace, the bower, and the hall, 

The orator, dramatist, minstrel who ran 

Through each mode of the lyre and was master of all ? 

Whose mind was an essence compounded with art 
From the finest and best of all other men's powers, 

Who ruled like a wizard the world of the heart 

And could call up its sunshine or bring down its 
showers ! 

Whose humor as gay as the fire-fly's light 

Played round every subject and shone as it played, 

Whose wit in the combat as gentle as bright 
Ne'er carried a heart-stain away on its blade. 

Whose eloquence brightening whatever it tried, 
Whether reason or fancy, the gay or the grave, 

Was as rapid, as deep, and as brilliant a tide 
As ever bore freedom aloft on its wave. 



THE LYRIC AND SONG 269 

Sincerity and lyrical abandon to the storm and 
stress of the inner life mark the verse of Shelley. 
It is not so much the object as his emotion in the 
presence of the object, that is the burden of his 
verse. Even the great elegy which opens with an 
invocation to the " mighty mother," the principle 
of life and beauty, the greatest of abstractions, 
closes with an almost hysterical burst of personal 
emotion : — 

The breath whose might I have invoked in song 

Descends on me ; my spirit's bark is driven 
Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng 

Whose sails were never to the tempest given ; 

The massy earth and sphered skies are riven ; 
I am borne darkly, fearfully afar ; 

Whilst burning through the inmost veil of Heaven 
The soul of Adonais like a star 
Beacons from the above where the eternal are. 

In the Ode to the West Wind he exclaims : — 

Make me thy lyre even as the forest is, 
What if my leaves are falling like its own ! 

The tumult of thy mighty harmonies 

Will take from both a deep autumnal tone 

Sweet, though in sadness. Be thou, spirit fierce, 
My spirit ! Be thou me, impetuous one ! 

This is the true lyrical rapture, the "waking 
to ecstasy " which makes so many of Shelley's 
shorter poems expressive when set to music though 
he lacked the technical skill of the song writer. 



270 THE LYRIC AND SONG 

His verse brings us into the presence of an in- 
tense personality, spritelike, unreasonable, way- 
ward, imparting to everything the color of a mood, 
and impelled to reveal itself in rhythmical words. 
The mood is not joyous, sometimes not altogether 
wholesome and reasonable, but it is disclosed in 
poetic form, the more interesting because elusive. 
For these reasons Shelley's shorter poems are 
typical of lyric verse. 

The lyrical note is heard in nearly all the poetry 
of the nineteenth century. Tennyson's Maud 
attempts the difficult task of presenting all the 
phases of a tragedy in a sequence of short poems. 
The motive of the tragic history may lack depth 
and nobility, but Come into the Garden, Maud, and 
/ have led her Home are songs of exquisite beauty. 
The songs in the Princess and Break, Break, Break, 
and many other of Tennyson's shorter poems 
down to Crossing the Bar are permanent additions 
to the golden treasury of English verse, though 
it might be objected that the poet seems too de- 
tached from his work for the personal appeal of 
the lyric. Browning " thinks too much " and too 
subtly, but is lyrical in attitude, so that his manly 
personality is evident, even in his most unsong- 
like verse, and many of his shorter poems are lyri- 
cal in directness of address, though as far removed 
from the ordinary song as it is possible to conceive. 
In Mandalay Rudyard Kipling has given the world 
a new love song not soon to be forgotten. 



THE LYRIC AND SONG 2J\ 

Of our American poets, Poe is the most lyrical, 
but his predisposition to the abnormal and semi- 
insane renders his verse almost too exceptional 
to be classified. The Haunted Palace appeals so 
strongly to the horrified sympathy with which we 
regard a ruined mind, and uses musical effects so 
wonderfully that it must be ranked as a great lyric 
in spite of a suggestion of insincerity. In fact, its 
excellence is rather musical than poetic. 

The Haunted Palace 

In the greenest of our valleys 

By good angels tenanted, 
Once a fair and stately palace — 

Radiant palace — reared its head. 
In the monarch Thought's dominion 

It stood there ; 
Never seraph waved a pinion 

Over fabric half so fair. 

Banners, yellow, glorious, golden, 

On its roof did float and flow, 
This — all this — was in the olden 

Time long ago ! 
And every gentle air that dallied 

In that sweet day 
Along the ramparts, plumed and pallid, 

A winged odor went away. 

Wanderers in that happy valley 

Through two luminous windows saw 



272 THE LYRIC AND SONG 

Spirits moving musically 

To a lute's well-tuned law, 
Round about a throne, where sitting, 

Porphyrogene, 
In state his glory well befitting, 

The ruler of the realm was seen. 

And all with pearl and ruby glowing 

Was the fair palace door, 
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing, 

And sparkling evermore, 
A troop of echoes whose sweet duty 

Was but to sing 
In voices of surpassing beauty 

The wit and wisdom of their king. 

But evil things in robes of sorrow 

Assailed the monarch's high estate, 
Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow 

Shall dawn upon him, desolate, 
And round about his home the glory 

That blushed and bloomed, 
Is but a dim-remembered story 

Of the old time entombed. 

And travelers now r within that valley, 

Through the red-litten windows see 
Vast forms that move fantastically 

To a discordant melody, 
While like a ghastly, rapid river, 

Through the pale door, 
A hideous throng rush out forever, 

And laugh, but smile no more. 



THE LYRIC AND SONG 2?$ 

Through the utterances of Longfellow, Whittier, 
and Lowell run a vein of moral seriousness and 
a sense of responsibility which, though admirable 
qualities for the conduct of life, are too weighty for 
the lyrical muse. Longfellow's gentle pathos tends 
to the reflective, and to him and Whittier the right 
and wrong of a question were of overwhelming im- 
portance. Neither is much preoccupied with his 
own individual view of the world as beautiful and 
joyous, but rather with his notion of the world as 
it ought to be. Lowell is eloquent and witty rather 
than musical. It is evident that our New England 
poets are not members of a community in which 
singing is an habitual means of expression for more 
than religious emotion. It may be that lyric verse 
will appear in the southern part of our country, 
where Nature is less hostile to man than she seems 
to be in New England. Of the popular poetry out 
of which it must spring, we have almost nothing. 
Music, especially vocal music, has become so com- 
plicated and refined an art as to be confined to 
semi-professionals, and what might be called popu- 
lar poetry, the songs which pass from the music 
halls to the streets, is wanting in simplicity and sin- 
cerity as well as in native and original melody. In 
quality it is far removed from the crudest song 
Burns heard in his childhood. 

Nevertheless, Mr. StQdman's American Ant/iology 
contains many vigorous lyrics not " sicklied o'er by 
the pale cast of thought " and not harking back to 

FORMS OF ENG. POETRY — 1 8 



274 THE LYRIC AND SONG 

the psalter or the hymnal. The encouragement 
we can gather from them is confirmed by Miss 
Marguerite Merington's verse : — 

There is a race from eld descent, 

Of heaven by earth in joyous mood, 
Before the world grew wise and bent 
In sad, decadent attitude. 

To these each waking is a birth 
That makes them heir to all the earth, 
Singing for pure abandoned mirth, 
Non nonny, non, hey nonny no. 

tf" 7|e tJc yp yfc $f 

Successful ones will brush these by, 
Calling them failures as they pass. 
What reck they this who claim the sky 
For roof, for bed the cosmic grass ! 
When failures all we come to lie, 
The grass betwixt us and the sky, 
The gift of gladness will not die ! 
Sing nonny, non, hey nonny no. 



CHAPTER VII 

SOCIETY VERSE AND THE VERSE OF CULTURE 

The poems which come under the head of Society 
Verse or Vers de Societea.VQ distinguished by subject- 
matter and standpoint rather than by form. They 
are lyrical, but the mood they embody is not earnest 
nor pathetic nor gay with the true lyrical feeling, 
nor have they the peculiar musical character of 
songs. They are of no great length, for to be in 
the least tedious is fatal to the writer's aim. They 
are good-humored in tone, and have the unmistak- 
able note of good society ; an intelligent interest 
in trifles, a content with the surface of things, an 
ignoring of the real nature and meaning of appear- 
ances, and an equal avoidance of the serious and 
of the tiresome. A large part of life is concerned 
with things as they seem, not with things as they 
really are or as they ought to be. And society, 
using the word in its narrow sense for people whose 
main occupation is to find means of entertainment, 
has at its best the charm of elegance, gayety, and 
superficial propriety. If it is looked at with seri- 
ousness, it may become the theme of the satirist. 
But its pleasing surface does not necessarily conceal 

275 



276 SOCIETY VERSE 

corruption, vulgarity, and sordid ambitions. It is 
composed of men and women; and men and women, 
even under the dominion of conventional law, which 
regulates manners without regard to ultimate prin- 
ciples, present some charming and kindly aspects. 
Society verse dwells in a light and airy manner on 
these agreeable aspects, especially as they are 
brought out by the relations between the sexes. It 
ignores what may lie behind or beyond. It is writ- 
ten by men of a happy mood who enjoy to-day, are 
careless of to-morrow, and do not regard yesterday 
as wasted because it is a day of pleasure past. It 
requires in those who write it literary culture, or at 
least delicate literary feeling, lively susceptibility 
to impressions -from the social world, and the power 
of fixing those impressions in finished verse. It 
must not be tinctured by cynicism nor by any but 
the most subacid and smiling satire. Its spirit is 
that of refined comedy, free from all exaggeration 
or burlesque, and restricted to a limited field of gay 
and graceful sentiment. Had Mercutio been a poet, 
he would have written society verse. 

The art necessary to give distinction to society 
verse cannot be regarded as inferior because its 
subject-matter is a highly artificial condition. Art 
is a realization of the essence of anything, a striv- 
ing for perfection, and perfection is absolute. The 
subject-matter of an epic may be greater in interest, 
weight, and dignity than the subject-matter of 
society verse. The thought may range over wider 



SOCIETY VERSE 2/7 

interests, the mood be deeper and more serious, the 
humanity of a far wider scope, but the beauty of 
the short verse may be quite as great as that of the 
longer one with its episodes and its slow movement 
to the catastrophe, its hints at the underworld, 
and its recognition of moral law. Furthermore, 
the beauty of little things is much more easily 
comprehended than is the beauty of great things. 
It may require long study, and some knowledge of 
the development of philosophic and theological 
thought, before one can appreciate the reach and 
great proportions of Paradise Lost. But the unity 
of a short poem, characterized by gayety, airiness, 
and good humor, can be appreciated in a few 
moments and is in its way entirely satisfying. As 
far as beauty is concerned, the humming bird is no- 
wise inferior to the eagle, and the humming bird 
is darting about among the flowers on the earth, 
whereas the eagle is high in the air or on the top 
of a mountain, where he is inaccessible to all but 
the most persevering and daring, though doubtless 
very impressive and in keeping with the lonely 
rocks. Art is an embodiment of the beautiful 
within the range of our perceptive faculties, and a 
cameo and a statue of Jupiter Olympus are equally 
works of art and may give equal pleasure. Mental 
contact with the nobler theme may be more elevat- 
ing, but grace, precision, and delicacy of handling 
exert a refining influence even when exerted on 
trifles. 



2J% SOCIETY VERSE 

The tone of society verse may safely be re- 
garded as derived originally from the odes of 
Horace, though the civilization of Rome was so 
radically different from that of modern Christen- 
dom. The odes and epistles of the Latin poet are 
distinguished by the charm of urbanity, the ap- 
pearance of careless ease — the " curiosa felicitas " 
— the mental alertness and polite geniality which 
distinguish the best specimens of the type, society 
verse. His virtues are the conventional virtues of 
the man of the world — patriotism, friendliness, de- 
corum, courage. His pleasures are the social plea- 
sures — good fellowship, intelligent and sprightly 
conversation while a flask of Falernian cools in the 
shade ; his love, a frank admiration of beauty, and 
hearty sympathy with frolicsome youth. Wher- 
ever he is he will love " Lalagen, duke ridentem> 
dulce loquentem" but not with the lyric intensity 
of the love of Catullus for Lesbia. He is the 
Roman gentleman and man of letters, responsive to 
the social instincts within the limits of good form 
and gifted with the light and spirited touch of the 
artist. His odes attain all the excellencies of 
society verse, and to translate and paraphrase them 
has been a favorite exercise with Englishmen since 
the seventeenth century. His manner has been 
copied and his attitude to life assumed as far as 
possible by many modern writers. 

Though Horace is the first exemplar of a poet 
writing finished verse full of good sense and wit 



SOCIETY VERSE 279 

applied to matters in which cultured people were 
interested, there is a note in modern society verse 
not heard in his Carmina. The social institution of . 
chivalry dominated Europe from the thirteenth to the 
seventeenth century. One of its tenets was an exag- 
gerated, fantastic, artificial worship of woman, based, 
like all the conceptions of chivalry, on a noble ideal 
but degenerating in time into a set of affected and 
ridiculous expressions. The theory had immense 
effect on manners and literature from Chaucer's 
Troilas and Criseyde down to Sidney's Arcadia and 
later. Indeed, exaggerated and formal courtesy 
and theoretical devotion to woman is, in a subdued 
and modified form, part of the inherited mental con- 
stitution of the modern gentleman. The note of 
chivalric and deferential gallantry, half whimsical 
and half genuine, is still heard — perhaps only 
hinted — in modern society verse, and is of course 
not to be found in the odes of Horace. 

The "nimbler wits" of England have for nine 
centuries drawn much from France, the " sweet 
enemy " of Philip Sidney and the arbiter of taste 
for Polonius. England learned the society drama 
from the comedy of Moliere and epigrammatic 
comment on manners from the writers of the court 
of Louis XIV. The flippant and cynical gallantry 
of pre-Revolutionary France influenced the light 
verse of the Restoration and Augustan periods in 
England. Prior (1664-1721), the first writer of 
society verse in English, resided for some years in 



280 SOCIETY VERSE 

Paris and was familiar with the French language. 
Still, even in his case, the influence of French 
literature was coexistent with love for the odes of 
Horace, and we must regard the English familiarity 
with the Latin author and unbounded admiration 
for his verse as the root of nineteenth-century 
society verse, even though we admit that it would 
not be precisely what it is had not France furnished 
in the early eighteenth century the model of 
elegance in social and literary culture. There is 
an element of heartiness in the English character 
which prevented English writers from taking up 
except sporadically the French tone of cynical persi- 
flage. Of the examples cited it will be noticed that 
the one from Owen Meredith is the only one that 
is entirely French in tone, and that is worthy of 
La Rochefoucauld himself. As a rule the mocking 
gallantry of the Frenchman becomes good-humored 
banter in his English imitator, and to this Prior is 
no exception. No doubt English poets missed by 
the change an opportunity for some biting sarcasm, 
but sarcasm, except in the mildest suggestion, has 
no proper place in society verse. 

The Elizabethans were at once too enthusiastic, 
too romantic, and too much interested in serious 
questions to write with the moderation and decorum 
of modern society verse. Some of the madrigals 
of the period have the gayety and high spirits 
requisite to bring them within the definition, but 
they are songs or perhaps lyrics in the pastoral 



SOCIETY VERSE 28 I 

manner. The following from Davison's Poetical 
Rhapsody, 1602, may be regarded at least as a 
precursor, a "prophetic form" of the species, as 
the paleontologists say : — 

Faustina hath the fairer face. 
And Phyllida the feater grace ; 

Both have mine eye enriched : 
This sings full sweetly with her voice ; 
Her ringers make as sweet a noise ; 

Both have mine ear bewitched. 
Ah me ! sith Fates have so provided. 
My heart, alas, must be divided. 

George Wither (1 588-1667) was a fluent and 
voluminous writer of verse. The following has 
some of the ease and flexibility of movement of 
society verse and is comparatively modern in 
tone : — 

Shall I, wasting in despair. 

Dye because a woman's fair ? 

Or make pale my cheeks with care 

Cause another's rosie are ? 

Be she fairer than the Day 
Or the flowry meads in May, 
If she think not well of me, 
\Yhat care I how faire she be ? 



Shall my seely heart be pined 
Cause I see a woman kind ? 



282 SOCIETY VERSE 

Or a well disposed nature 
Joyned with a lovely feature ? 

Be she meeker, kinder than 

Turtle-dove or pellican ; 

If she be not so to me, 

What care I how kind she be! 

Shall a woman's virtues move 
Me to perish for her love, 
Or her well deservings known, 
Make me quite forget mine own ? 
Be she with that goodness blest 
Which may merit name of best, 
If she be not such to me, 
What care I how good she be I 

Cause her Fortune seems too high 
Shall I play the fool and die ? 
She that bears a noble mind, 
If not outward helps she find, 

Thinks what with them he would do, 
That without them dares her woo. 
And unless that minde I see, 
What care I how great she be ! 

Great or Good or Kinde or Faire, 
I will ne'er the more despair, 
If she love me (this believe) 
I will die ere she shall grieve. 

If she slight me when I woo, 
I can scorn and let her go, 
For if she be not for me 
What care I for whom she be ? 



SOCIETY VERSE 283 

Robert Herrick was amply endowed with the 
power of felicitous poetic phrasing, but his subject- 
matter is the simple and natural relations of life. 
He says in the introduction to Hesperides : — 

I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds and bowers, 
Of April, May, of June and July flowers. 
I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes, 
Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal cakes. 

His workmanship is exquisite, but his subject is 
not the subject-matter of society verse. The little 
odes to Blossoms and to Daffodils are very neatly 
turned, and he invented many charming and in- 
genious verse forms, and holds a very high rank 
in his line as a writer of bits of verse. 

Edmund Waller (1605-1687), the cousin of the 
patriot Hampden, celebrated the charms of the 
Lady Dorothy Sidney, under the name of " Sacha- 
rissa." He is known as the first writer of the 
heroic couplet in which the grammatical pauses 
correspond with the end of the line — the manner 
afterward brought to such perfection by Pope — 
but as a love poet seems rather tame. His verses 
On a Girdle, and those entitled Go, Lovely Rose, are 
to be found in every anthology. The latter has 
all the charm possible to light amatory poetry in 
which dainty sentiment forbids us to believe the 
passion very sincere or profound : — 

Go, lovely Rose, 
Tell her that wastes her time and me, 



284 SOCIETY VERSE 

That now she knows, 
When I resemble her to thee, 
How sweet and fair she seems to be. 

Tell her that's young 
And shuns to have her graces spied, 

That had'st thou sprung 
In deserts where no men abide, 
Thou must have uncommended died. 

Small is the worth 
Of beauty from the light retired, 

Bid her come forth, 
Suffer herself to be desired, 
And not blush so to be admired. 

Then die, that she 
The common fate of all things rare 

May read in thee, 
How small a part of time they share 
Who are so wondrous sweet and fair. 

The foregoing is marked by graceful poetic 
fancy. The tone of the vers de societe, however, 
has a certain gay carelessness and rather less of 
the imaginative element, a more personal and 
realistic attitude and a diction more like that of 
ordinary conversation and a very slight subacid 
flavor of good-humored irony. This is a modern 
note, and one must get rather farther from the 
Elizabethan age, which is too intense and high- 
spirited and romantic, before one finds it. 



SOCIETY VERSE 285 

The royalist poets, Suckling and Lovelace, are 
animated by the good-humored gayety of the 
society poet, but when the latter sings : — 

Stone walls do not a prison make, 

Nor iron bars a cage, 
Minds innocent and quiet take 

That for an hermitage. 
If I have freedom in my love, 

And in my soul am free 
Angels alone that soar above 

Enjoy such liberty, 

he is animated by a courage and sincerity that 
lifts him above the ordinary mood of the poet of 
society verse who does not concern himself with 
the real prison and bars of veritable metal which 
confined the writer of To Alt/tea from Prison. 
William Habington in his Mistress Flouted strikes 
the note of irony that is heard in society verse 
here and there, as does Suckling in Constancy 
and Abraham Cowley in The Chronicle, when he 
enumerates the names of the fair ones who have 
successively taken his fancy. Of the tenth in 
order he says : — 

Gentle Henrietta then, 

And a third Mary next began, 

Then Joan, and Jane, and Audria, 
And then a pretty Thomasine, 
And then another Catherine, 

And then a long et cetera. 



286 SOCIETY VERSE 

But should I now to you relate, 

The strength and riches of their state, 

The powder, patches, and the pins, 
The ribbands, jewels, and the rings, 
The lace, the paint and warlike things, 

That make up all their magazines ; 

If I should tell the politic arts 
To take and keep men's hearts, 

The letters, embassies, and spies, 
The frowns and smiles and flatteries, 
The quarrels, tears, and perjuries ; 

Numberless, nameless mysteries 1 

And all the little lime-twigs laid 
By Matchavil, the waiting maid, 

I more voluminous should grow, 
(Chiefly if I like them should tell 
All change of weather that befell) 

Than Holinshed or Stow. 

But I will briefer with them be, 
Since few of them were long with me. 

An higher and a nobler strain 
My present Empress doth claim, 
Heleonora, first o' th' name ; 

Whom God grant long to reign. 

These are unimportant verses certainly, but 
enough to show the gradual change of the lyric 
spirit in the seventeenth century. 

Mr. Gosse considers the Song written at Sea by 
Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset, in 1665, the first 



SOCIETY VERSE 28/ 

specimen of vers de societe in the English lan- 
guage. The writer was with the fleet sent against 
Holland by Charles II: — 

To all you ladies now at land, 

We men at sea indite, 
But first would have you understand 

How hard it is to write ; 
The muses now and Neptune, too, 
We must implore to write to you. 

For though the muses should prove kind 

And fill our empty brain, 
Yet, if rough Neptune rouse the wind, 

To wave the azure main, 
Our paper, pen, and ink and we 
Roll up and down, our ships at sea. 

Then, if we write not by each post, 

Think not we are unkind, 
Nor yet conclude our ships are lost 

By Dutchmen or by wind, 
Our tears we'll send a speedier way, 
The tide shall waft them twice a day. 

And so he runs on in the best of good spirits, but 
not boisterous, a certain elegant decorum molding 
his gay utterance, and ends : — 

But now our fears tempestuous grow, 

And cast our hopes away ; 
Whilst you regardless of our woe 

Sit careless at a play ; 



288 SOCIETY VERSE 

Perhaps permit some happier man 
To kiss your hand or flirt your fan. 

When any mournful tune you hear 

That dies in every note, 
As if it sighed with each man's care 

For being so remote 
Think, then, how often love we've made 
To you when all those tunes were played. 

And now we've told you all our loves 

And likewise all our fears, 
In hopes this declaration moves 

Some pity from your tears ; 
Let's hear of no inconstancy, 
We have too much of that at sea. 

Mathew Prior, of the early eighteenth century, 
combines wit and metrical skill with an indescrib- 
able air of well-bred impudence in a way that gives 
him, when at his best, a very high rank among 
writers of light verse : — 

Dear Chloe, how blubbered is that pretty face, 
Thy cheek all on fire and thy hair all uncurled ; 

Prythee quit this caprice ; and as old Falstaff says, 
" Let us e'en talk a little like folks of this world." 

How canst thou presume thou hast leave to destroy 
The beauties which Venus but lent to thy keeping ? 

Those looks were designed to inspire love and joy ; 
More ordinary eyes may serve people for weeping. 



SOCIETY VERSE 289 

To be vexed at a trifle or two that I writ, 

Your judgment at once and my passion you wrong ; 

You take that for fact which will scarce be found wit ; 
Od's life ! must one swear to the truth of a song I 

What I speak, my fair Chloe, and what I write shows 
The difference there is betwixt nature and art ; 

I court others in verse, but I love thee in prose, 
And they have my whimsies ; but thou hast my 
heart. 

The god of us verse-men, — you know, child, — the 
Sun, 

How after his journeys he sets up his rest, 
If at morning o'er earth 'tis his fancy to run, 

At. night he reclines on his Thetis's breast. 

So when I am weary of wandering all day, 
To thee my delight in the evening I come, 

No matter what beauties I saw in my way, 

They were but my visits, but thou art my home. • 

Then finish dear child, this pastoral war, 
And let us like Horace and Lydia agree, 

For thou art a girl as much brighter than her 
As he was a poet sublimer than me. 

The anapests give a movement precisely fitting 
to the bantering tone of the speaker. The poem 
is thoroughly modern. Except for the delightful 
word " whimsies," for which we would substitute 
fancies, and the idiomatic forms, "than her" and 

FORMS OF ENG. POETRY — IQ 



29O SOCIETY VERSE 

"than me," the verses might have appeared in the 
last issue of one of our magazines if we had a poet 
of the good-humored vivacity and easy grace of 
Mathew Prior. "Sublime" is a strange adjective 
to apply to Horace, but the use of it suggests the 
critical standpoint of the writer. 

The eighteenth century produced little light verse 
of a high order. The essays of Addison and Steele 
abound in good-tempered raillery at the foibles of 
fashion, but they are prose. Pope's epistles are 
acrid whenever women are the subject. The poet 
who held that women are characterless could never 
write society verse, for its finest essence is due to 
a perception, at once humorous and gallant, that 
the feminine character is far more interesting and 
entertaining than the masculine. Pope's Rape of 
the Lock deals with some of the material of society 
verse, but it is a burlesque or mock-heroic, and not 
based on the essential but on the remote analogies 
of the situation, in which case the wit of a mock- 
heroic is apt to be shallow and artificial. 

Winthrop Mackworth Praed (1 802-1 839) is one 
of the most delightful of the poets of life and 
manners. In " wisdom that wears the mask of 
fun," in wit so spontaneous as to appear instruc- 
tive, in a veiled gayety with just a hint of serious- 
ness, in polite suppression of everything that might 
prove tiresome or rouse unpleasantly serious re- 
flections, he is unrivaled. The double rhyme which 
he habitually uses presents no obstacles to an ex- 



SOCIETY VERSE 2CjI 

pression as limpid and effortless as prose. An 
Eton boy, a Cambridge student, and a young 
member of Parliament, he was of course " to the 
manner born," and his verse reflects a sunny and 
cheerful temperament and evinces perfect familiar- 
ity with the society he sketches. His muse is 
busied with trifles, but she is far from being a gos- 
sip or a newspaper reporter ; her tact is delicate 
and her vision keen and her good humor inexhaust- 
ible. Praed has one of the marks of the true 
humorist, he can be greatly amused with his own 
foibles. Of his boyish passion for the charming 
Laura Lilly, he writes : — 

She sketched ; the vale, the wood, the beach, 

Grew lovelier from her pencil's shading : 
She botanized ; I envied each 

Young blossom in her boudoir fading : 
She warbled Handel ; it was grand ; 

She made the Catalina jealous : 
She touched the organ ; I could stand 

For hours and hours to blow the bellows. 

She smiled on many, just for fun — 

I knew that there was nothing in it ; 
I was the first — the only one 

Her heart had thought of for a minute. 
I knew it, for she told me so, 

In phrase which was divinely molded : 
She wrote a charming hand, and oh ! 

How sweetly all her notes were folded, 



292 SOCIETY VERSE 

Our love was like most other loves, — 

A little glow, a little shiver, 
A rosebud, and a pair of gloves, 

And " Fly not yet," upon the river, 
Some jealousy of some one's heir, 

Some hopes of dying broken-hearted, 
A miniature, a lock of hair, 

The usual vows, — and then, we parted. 

We parted ; months and years rolled by ; 

We met again four summers after ; 
Our parting was all sob and sigh ; 

Our meeting was all mirth and laughter : 
For in my heart's most secret cell 

There had been many other lodgers, 
And she was not the ball-room belle 

But only — Mrs. Something Rogers. 

Mr. Locker-Lampson, one of the most finished 
writers of light verse of the moderns, says that 
Praed " has plenty of wit and a highly idiomatic, 
incisive, and most finished style and, in his peculiar 
vein, has never been equaled, and it may safely be 
affirmed can never be excelled." All of Praed's 
poems are marked w r ith his peculiar felicity. My 
Partner, The Ball-room Belle, Good-night to the 
Season, The Fancy Ball, School and Schoolfellows, 
are among the most characteristic. 

Mr. Austin Dobson, the English Horace, is more 
a man of letters than Praed, and much of his verse 
is reminiscent of the eighteenth century. He 



SOCIETY VERSE 293 

dwells on the aspects of society one hundred and 
fifty years ago rather than on the " passing show." 
His society verse is more dainty than Praed's, with 
perhaps less of the air of spontaneity. In Incog- 
nita he handles Praed's favorite meter as skillfully 
as Praed himself could. Avis, in a difficult meter, 
is an admirable example of his delicate skill. 

In the definition we have taken, cynicism or 
worldliness is as much out of place in society verse 
as false philosophy is in serious poetry. Owen 
Meredith (Lord Lytton) was a popular favorite 
forty years ago and was a prolific and fairly skill- 
ful rhymester. Lack of heartiness and sincerity 
taints his long poem, Lucile, and is evident in the 
poem below : — 

The Portrait 

Midnight past : not a sound of aught 

Thro' the silent house but the wind at his prayers. 
I sat by the dying fire and thought 

Of the dear dead woman upstairs. 

Nobody with me my watch to keep, 

But the friend of my bosom, the man I love, 

And grief had sent him fast to sleep 
In the chamber up above. 

Nobody else in the country place 

All round that knew of my loss beside, 

But the good young priest, with the Raphael face, 
Who confessed her when she died. 



294 SOCIETY VERSE 

On her cold dead bosom my portrait lies, 
Which next to her heart she used to wear, 

Haunting it o'er with tender eyes 
When my own face was not there. 

And I said, " The thing is precious to me, 

They will bury her soon in the churchyard clay ; 

It lies on her heart and lost must be 
If I do not take it away." 

I lighted my lamp at the dying flame, 

And crept up the stairs that creaked for fright, 

Till into the chamber of death I came 
Where she lay all in white. 

As I stretched my hand, I held my breath, 
I turned as I drew the curtains apart : 

I dared not look on the face of the dead, 
I knew where to find her heart. 

I thought, at first, as my touch fell there, 
It had warmed that heart to life with love ; 

For the thing I touched was warm I swear, 
And I could feel it move. 

'Twas the hand of a man that was moving slow 
O'er the heart of the dead — from the other side : 

And at once the sweat broke over my brow, 
" W 7 ho is robbing the corpse ? " I cried. 

Opposite me by the taper's light, 

The friend of my bosom, the man I loved, 

Stood over the corpse, and all as white, 
And neither of us moved. 



SOCIETY VERSE 295 

" What do you here, my friend ? " The man 
Looked first at me and then at the dead. 

" There is a portrait here," he began, 
" There is ; it is mine," I said. 

Said the friend of my bosom, " Yours no doubt 

The portrait was till a month ago, 
When this suffering angel took that out, 

And placed mine there, I know." 

" This woman, she loved me well," said I. 

" A month ago," said my friend to me : 
" And in your throat," I groaned, "you lie " : 

He answered, "Let us see." 

We found the portrait there in its place ; 

We opened it by the taper's shine : 
The gems were all unchanged ; — the face 

Was neither his nor mine. g 

" One nail drives out another, at least ; 

The face of the portrait there," I cried, 
" Is our friend's, the Raphael-faced young priest 

Who confessed her when she died." 

The poet Rossetti said that "fundamental brain 
work " was what distinguished good poetry from 
inferior work. Poetry is illuminated good sense, 
and even when the subject-matter is the merest 
trifle, a sound relation to fact is necessary. Gro- 
tesqueness has no place in society verse. 



296 SOCIETY VERSE 

Mr. Locker-Lampson says " Suckling and Her- 
rick, Swift and Prior, Cowper, Landor, and Thomas 
Moore, and Praed and Thackeray may be consid- 
ered the representative men in this branch of our 
literature." Herrick seems rather too poetic and 
Swift too intense to be fairly included, but Mr. 
Locker-Lampson's definition of society verse is 
broad enough to include all the verse of wit and 
culture. His Lyra Elegantium is the only collec- 
tion of light, lyrical verse in our language, and in 
the notes he says that poems of this class " should 
be short, elegant, refined and fanciful, not seldom 
distinguished by chastened sentiment, and often 
playful, and should have one uniform and simple 
design. The tone should not be pitched high, and 
the language should be idiomatic, the rhythm crisp 
and sparkling, the rhyme frequent and never forced, 
while the entire poem should be marked by taste- 
ful moderation, high finish and completeness, for 
however trivial the subject-matter may be, subor- 
dination to the rules of composition and perfection 
of execution should be strictly enforced. Each 
piece cannot be expected to exhibit all these char- 
acteristics, but the qualities of brevity and buoy- 
ancy are essential." 

The examples in this chapter thus far have been 
restricted to light verse of gallantry, but Mr. 
Locker-Lampson's definition would cover all 
poems of marked elegance and destitute of intense 
imaginative fervor. In particular, it would cover 



SOCIETY VERSE 297 

the poems in which the nineteenth century criti- 
cises in a half-regretful, half-humorous way the 
past and its fashions, especially the eighteenth 
century. In earlier ages men regarded the past 
either as barbarous or as superior in simplicity and 
honor, and it was not till within the last century 
that men began to regard their great-grandfathers 
as quaintly and humorously interesting. The in- 
creased complexity of modern life, the restlessness 
and bustle which follow improved means of loco- 
motion and communication wear on us. We see 
that our predecessors lived at a more leisurely rate 
and were not forced to listen to so many discord- 
ant street cries. Again, the modern theory of 
development has made us conscious that our civili- 
zation is but a stage, and perhaps not as comfort- 
able and reasonable a stage as theirs. At least, 
they lived as long and fruitfully as we, and much 
more quietly. The modern tendency to precision 
has made their manners clear to us, as the past 
has never been in any age before. Chaucer and 
his contemporaries made the Grecian and Trojan 
worthies talk like knights of the court of Ed- 
ward III; Shakespeare and his contemporaries 
conceive the characters of history as Elizabethan 
men and women, and place them in an Elizabethan 
civilization, firing cannon and discussing skeptical 
philosophy in the dark ages of Denmark and 
heading an army with " drums and colors " in pre- 
historic Britain. But Thackeray reproduces the 



298 SOCIETY VERSE 

manners of the Augustan age with scrupulous and 
affectionate exactness. Austin Dobson is one of 
many who have embalmed in verse the manners 
of the past; "the assembly," "the rout," the 
literary coterie, the "form and pressure" of 
" Anna's or of George's day." Poems on such 
topics may well be called the verse of culture, or 
even society verse, though they have to do with a 
vanished society. Austin Dobson's To a Missal of 
the Thirteenth Century embodies regret for an aspect 
of the past interesting to the literary man. The Old 
Sedan Chair and Molly Trefusis are society verse 
from the standpoint of the lover of the eight- 
eenth century. FitzGerald's Chivalry at a Dis- 
count, Praed's The Vicar, Locker-Lampson's The 
Old Oak Tree come within his category. Dob- 
son's To a Missal ends : — 

Not as ours the books of old — 
Things that steam can stamp and fold ; 
Not as ours the books of yore — 
Rows of type and nothing more. 

Then a book was still a Book, 
Where a wistful man might look, 
Finding something through the whole 
Beating — like a human soul. 

In that growth of day by day, 
When to labor was to pray, 
Surely something vital passed 
To the patient page at last. 



SOCIETY VERSE 299 

Something that one still perceives 
Vaguely present in the leaves ; 
Something from the worker lent, 
Something mute — but eloquent. 

In our country poets have contributed not a 
little to the graceful and spirited verse of culture. 
The wit of Dr. Holmes frequently played about 
social themes with good-humored sprightliness. 
The Last Leaf and Dorothy Q are all that society 
verse should be, and the Autocrat at the Breakfast 
Table is society verse in prose, if such a contradic- 
tion is admissible. Mr. William Allen Butler's 
Nothing to Wear is such kindly satire that, in 
spite of the moral earnestness of the close, it falls 
within the general definition. The author, too, 
seems thoroughly at home in the world he de- 
scribes. Mr. Aldrich's poetry is always marked 
with distinction, polish, and urbanity. His Thalia 
is absolutely perfect, the acme of the poetry of 
culture. There is no poem in the language in 
which the contrast between worldliness and un- 
sophisticated nature is more felicitously presented 
than in Mr. Stedman's Pan in Wall Street. Praed 
himself could not have touched the chord with 
more unerring perception, nor have put his rhymes 
together with more delicate skill, albeit the meter 
is one which the English poet has made peculiarly 
his own. This and Dr. Holmes's Last Leaf touch 
high-water mark. Our tendency to grotesque, ex- 



300 SOCIETY VERSE 

aggerated humor carries many of our lighter 
rhymes outside of the definition of society verse. 
Good-humored toleration of folly and readiness to 
catch the human features behind the mask of 
affectation and conventionalism is not a distinctive 
trait of men descended from Puritan ancestors. 
Consequently, the note of ridicule or of satire is 
sometimes heard instead of the kindly cynicism of 
one familiar with all the phases of society. Again, 
our past is not so picturesque as is that of England, 
and our social life lacks many of the class tradi- 
tions that give perspective and color to an old 
civilization. Our " passing show" lacks long- 
established associations, and it must be confessed 
is not so interesting and thought-provoking, nor 
amusing as is that of the mother country. A 
people which has originated the phrase the " stren- 
uous life " and pronounces the word " hustle " with 
religious fervor, does not breathe the atmosphere 
of cultivated leisure in which delicate literary 
flowers bloom. 

Nevertheless, an American anthology of fugitive 
verse might be compiled in which wit, sincerity, 
playfulness, and pathos should be commingled in 
just proportions. The compiler would draw on the 
work of Clinton Scollard and Walter Learned and 
George A. Baker and many others of less note, 
and could easily show that we are not unapt dis- 
ciples of Prior and Praed and Austin Dobson. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE FRENCH FORMS 

The rondel, the rondeau, the triolet, the villa- 
nelle, the ballade, and the chant royal are metri- 
cal schemes which were invented in France proper, 
that is in the northern part of what is now France, 
some of them as early as the thirteenth century. 
With them may be included the sestina invented 
in Provence in the first quarter of the thirteenth 
century. All of these are forms as strictly as is 
the Italian sonnet, indeed even more so, since the 
rhyme scheme is inflexible, although some latitude 
is allowed in the length of the lines. All except 
the last have been adopted by poets in the English 
language since the seventeenth century, although 
the number of rhyming words required is a serious 
obstacle to their general use. In the last quarter 
of the nineteenth century, Swinburne and Dobson 
in England, and Bunner and several other writers 
of light verse in our country, wrote a number of 
ballades, rondels, and rondeaux which have much 
of the grace and vivacity of the best French speci- 
mens. The allowance of identical terminals as 
rhymes in French poetry, as for instance all 

301 



302 THE FRENCH FORMS 

words ending in //, like beauty bontt, naivety 
etc., reduces materially the difficulty of finding the 
six or eight rhymes which several of the French 
forms require. All of these forms, especially the 
rondel, are well fitted to be the mold for light, gay 
sentiment. All of them are essentially French in 
character, artificial but not cumbrous, formal, but 
not stiff, graceful but not with the free unstudied 
grace of nature. All have the note of literary 
distinction, and are usually the vehicle of senti- 
ment appropriate to vers de societe or to the verse 
of culture. 

The first mentioned, the rondel, contains like 
the sonnet, fourteen lines. Only two rhyming 
sounds are allowed, but as the first and second 
lines are used as a refrain, and repeated in the 
eighth and ninth and in the thirteenth and four- 
teenth, it is necessary to find two sets of five 
rhyming words only. Even this restricts the 
English writer to certain well-known groups. The 
refrain, which should be welded into the structure 
of the sentence, or at least not break the continuity 
of the thought, is a feature of all but one of the 
French forms, and frequently gives a very pleas- 
ing effect. The normal recurrence of the rhymes 
in the rondel is a-b-b-a-a-b-a-b-a-b-b-a-a-b, the first, 
the fourth, and the seventh a representing the 
same word, and the first, the fourth, and the 
seventh b, also standing for the same word, to 
which the others, represented by b, rhyme. Mr. 



THE FRENCH FORMS 3O3 

Dobson, who has succeeded better than any other 
modern in rendering these delicate forms in our 
language, deviates slightly from the French tra- 
dition in the arrangement of the rhymes, while 
retaining the refrain in the middle and end. 
His rhyme scheme is a-b-a-b-b-a-a-b-a-b-a-b a-b, 
involving two couplets less and more alternate 
rhymes. One of his rondels will serve for an 
example : — 

Too hard it is to sing 

In these untunefui times, 
When only coin can ring, 

And no one cares for rhymes. 

Alas for him who climbs 
To Aganippe's Spring : 
Too hard it is to sing 

In these untunefui times. 

His kindred clip his wing, 

His feet the critic limes ; 
If fame her laurel bring, 

Old age his forehead rimes : 
Too hard it is to sing 

In these untunefui times. — 

In some cases the first line only is repeated in 
the refrain in the middle or even in both places, 
thus bringing the rondel down to thirteen or even 
to twelve lines. Mr. Swinburne's " roundel " is 
nearer to a rondeau than to a rondel. It consists 
of eleven lines rhyming a-b-a-b-b-a-b-a-b-a-b, lines 



3O4 THE FRENCH FORMS 

four and eleven being the first phrase or even 
the first word of the first line repeated. The re- 
frain is sometimes omitted entirely. Mr. Swin- 
burne wrote a century of poems in this form, and 
they show his astonishing facility in rhyming, but 
lack of power in deft and dexterous phrasing. The 
following is one of the most pleasing : — 

" Far-fetched and dear-bought," as the proverb re- 
hearses, 
Is good, or was held so, for ladies ; but nought 
In a song can be good if the turn of the verse is 

Far-fetched and dear-bought. 
As the turn of a wave should it sound, and the thought 
Ring smooth ; and as light as the spray that disperses 
Be the gleam of the words for the garb thereof wrought. 

Let the soul in it shine through the sound as it pierces 

Men's hearts with possession of music unsought, 
For the bounties of song are no jealous god's mercies, 
Far-fetched and dear-bought. 

The rondolet is a pretty diminutive of the rondel. 
It consists of seven lines only, two of which are 
the first repeated. 

Say what you please, 
But know, I shall not change my mind ! — 

Say what you please, 
Even, if you wish it, on your knees — 
And when you hear me next defined 
As something lighter than the wind, 

Say what you please. 



THE FRENCH FORMS 305 

The rondeau, the form which has met the most 
favor in English, is much like the rondel, and it 
consists of thirteen iambic lines of eight or ten 
syllables with only two rhymes. It contains three 
stanzas, the first and third of five lines, the second 
of three, and a refrain consisting of the first word 
or words of the first line added without rhyming to 
anything at the end of the eighth and the thir- 
teenth lines. It is the classic vehicle for French 
wit and epigram and compliment, though a later 
form than the rondel, and has a certain aristocratic 
grace and distinction. It was very much cultivated 
in Louis the fourteenth's reign, when there was no 
lack of taste and stylistic precision, if truth and 
heroism were in little repute. In the regular form 
the rhymes run-a-a-b-b-a-a-a-b-a-a-b-b-a. 

It is of course very difficult to find in English 
eight good rhymes, and perhaps in an extremity a 
writer might be allowed to use the same word twice. 
Mr. Dobson has caught the French spirit in his 
rondeau on The Hurry of This Time : — 

With slower pen men used to write 

Of old when letters were " polite " ; 

In Anna's or in George's days 

They could afford to turn a phrase 

Or trim a straggling theme aright. 

They knew not steam ; electric light 
Xot yet had dazed their calmer sight ; 

FORMS OF ENG. POETRY — 20 



306 THE FRENCH FORMS 

They meted out both blame and praise 
With slower pen. 

Too swiftly now the hours take flight, 
What's read at morn is dead at night ; 
Scant space have we for Art's delays 
Whose breathless thought so briefly stays ; 
We may not work — ah, would we might ! 
With slower pen. 

Mr. Dobson's ten-line rondeau requires but five 
rhymes to each terminal, which brings it within 
the reach of ordinary perseverance and ingenuity. 
In Mr. Dobson's hands it loses little of its dainty 
precision by being shortened, as is evident from 
the following one addressed to the American artist, 
Boughton : — 

Spring stirs and wakes by holt and hill ; 
In barren copse and bloomless close 
Revives the memory of the rose, 

And breaks the yellow daffodil ; 

Look how the spears of crocus fill 
The ancient hollows of the snows — 
Spring stirs and wakes ! — 

Yet what to you are months ! At will 
For you the season comes or goes : 
We watch the flower that fades and blows 

But on your happy canvas still, 
Spring stirs and wakes. 

The French poet Voiture, of the age of Louis 
XIV, some thirty of whose rondeaux have been 



THE FRENCH FORMS 307 

preserved, was master of this form. Mr. Dobson 
approximates as nearly as is possible in English to 
his dainty, graceful precision, but there is a quality 
of gayety in some of the French ones that cannot 
quite be caught in a foreign language. 

The triolet is a characteristically French measure, 
and is one of the oldest, though all of them have 
been in use for five or six centuries. The triolet 
consists of eight lines, usually short ones, of an 
anapestic movement. In reality there are but five 
lines in this tripping stanza, since the first is repeated 
as the fourth and the first and second as the seventh 
and eighth. The rhymes run a-b-a-a-a-b-a-b, and 
the rhyme on b is preferably double or triple. This 
quaint little verse has much of the vivacity and 
apparent artlessness of a bird's song. The follow- 
ing examples illustrate the structure and the qual- 
ity. The first is from Mr. Dobson's lines entitled 
Rose Leaves : — 

I intended an ode 
And it turned into triolets ; 
It began a-la-mode, — 

I intended an ode, 
But Rose crossed the road 
With a bunch of fresh violets — 

I intended an ode, 
But it turned into triolets. 

One of the prettiest sets is Mr. Dobson's Notes 
of a Honeymoon in his volume At the Sign of the 



308 THE FRENCH FORMS 

Lyre. The bride discovers the marriage notice 
"at a bookstall." 

" Here it is in the Times ; 

Dear Charlie, how funny ! 
'Twixt a ' Smith ' and a ' Symes.' 

Here it is in the Times : 
And it's not with the crimes ! 
You must pay, I've no money. 

Here it is in the Times, 
Dear Charlie, how funny ! " 

Misgivings, No. I 

" Poor papa, he's alone ! " 
She is sure he must miss her, 

There's a tear in the tone — 

" Poor papa! he's alone ; " 

At this point I own 

There is naught but to kiss her. 

" Poor papa — he's alone ; " 
She is sure he must miss her. 

Misgivings, No. 2 

By-play as before — ■ 

" Then you'll love me forever? " 
" Forever and more ! " 
(By-play as before) 
" Never think me a bore ? 

Never laugh at me ? " " Never ! " 
(By-play as before) 

" Then you'll love me forever ? " 



THE FRENCH FORMS 3O9 

The other French forms are adapted to more 
serious thought than the triolet, though all have the 
charm of vivacity regulated by prescribed manner. 
The ballade which has nothing in common with 
the English ballad since it is not folk song but 
the flower of aristocratic and cultured literary art, 
consists of three stanzas of eight lines each and a 
concluding stanza of four lines called the envoi or 
dedication. The lines are usually of eight or ten 
syllables and of the iambic movement, though many 
of the English reproductions are anapestic or 
dactylic and sometimes in six-syllable verse. Ac- 
cording to strict law there should be but three 
rhymes arranged : a-b-a-b-b-c-b-c and running through 
the four stanzas. The difficulty of finding so many 
rhymes on one terminal has led to the use of four 
rhymes instead of three only, a new terminal being 
introduced on the fifth and seventh lines. The 
eighth line is the same in the three long stanzas 
and in the close of the envoi, constituting a refrain 
which adds greatly to the musical effect. Mr. Dob- 
son's Ballade of Heroes illustrates the structure : — 

Because you passed and now are not, 

Because in some remoter day, 
Your sacred dust from doubtful spot 

Was blown by ancient airs away, 

Because you perished — must men say 
Your deeds were naught, and so profane 

Your lives with that cold burden — Nay, 
The deeds you wrought were not in vain. 



310 THE FRENCH FORMS 

Though it may be above the plot 
That hid your once imperial clay, 

No greener than o'er men forgot, 
The unregarding grasses sway, 
Though there no sweeter is the lay 

Of careless bird — though you remain 
Without distinction of decay ; 

The deeds you wrought are not in vain. 

No, for while yet, in town or cot, 
Your story stirs the pulse's play, 

And men forget the sordid lot, 
The sordid care of cities gray, 
While yet beset in homelier fray, 

They learn from you the lesson plain, 
That life may go so honor stay, 

The deeds you wrought are not in vain. 

Heroes of old — I humbly lay 
The laurel on your graves again : 

Whatever men have done men may, — 
The deeds you wrought are not in vain. 

The name of the graceless scamp, Francois Vil- 
lon, who was condemned to be hanged in 1461, is 
identified with the ballade as much as that of 
Petrarch is with the sonnet. Rossetti's translation 
of Villon's Ballade of Dead Women is justly cele- 
brated, and the one to his comrades who were 
hanged is a singular and powerful compound of 
melancholy and diablerie. 

The villanelle is a quaint and pleasing form 



THE FRENCH FORMS 31 I 

marked by repetitions, or alternate refrains. It is 
made up of three- line stanzas, the middle lines of 
all the stanzas rhyming as well as the first and 
third, the scheme being a-b-a — a-b-a. But the 
first line of the first stanza is repeated as the last 
of all the even numbered stanzas, and the last line 
of the first stanza is repeated as the last line of the 
odd numbered stanzas. An examination of the fol- 
lowing specimen by Mr. Gosse will make the metri- 
cal construction clear. It will be observed that in 
the last stanza both of the repetends are included, 
making a four-line stanza, and that the repeated 
lines are brought logically into the context though 
slight verbal changes are permitted if the terminal 
word is always retained. Normally, the lines are 
repeated without change. 

Would'st thou not be content to die, 
When low-hung fruit is hardly clinging, 
And golden Autumn passes by ? 

If we could vanish, you and I, 

While the last woodland bird is singing, 

Would'st thou not be content to die ? 

Deep drifts of leaves in the forest lie, 
Red vintage that the frost is flinging, 
And golden Autumn passes by — 

Beneath this delicate rose-gray sky, 
While sunset bells are faintly ringing, 
Would'st thou not be content to die ? 



312 THE FRENCH FORMS 

For wintry webs of mist on high 

Out of the muffled earth are springing, 

And golden Autumn passes by — 

O now, when pleasures fade and fly, 

And Hope her southward flight is winging 

Would 'st thou not be content to die ? 

Lest winter come with wailing cry, 
His cruel icy bondage bringing 
When golden Autumn hath passed by ; 

And thou with many a tear and sigh, 
While life her wasted hands is wringing, 
Shall pray in vain for leave to die 
When golden Autumn hath passed by. 

The chant royal is an extended ballade made 
up of five instead of three stanzas, each of eleven 
lines, with an envoi of five lines. The last line of 
the first stanza is repeated as the last of the four 
others and also of the envoi. As five rhymes only 
are allowed, one of them must be repeated three 
times and the others twice in each stanza, to say 
nothing of the envoi. As this implies fifteen 
rhymes on one terminal and ten on each of the 
two others, the chant royal is virtually impossible 
in English under our restrictions, which exclude 
identical terminals. Mr. Dobson has succeeded 
in producing one, but it must be regarded as a tour 
de force, a technical rather than an artistic triumph. 
There are some .fine poems in French on this pat- 



THE FRENCH FORMS 3 I 3 

tern by Clement Marot, a poet who lived in the 
reign of Francis I, contemporary with Henry VIII 
of England, but even these have the character of 
"curiosities of literature." Part of the pleasure 
we experience in reading poetry is due to our per- 
ception that a difficulty has been overcome and 
audible symmetry been produced out of unsym- 
metrical and refractory vocal material, but when 
the symmetry is entirely mechanical and evidently 
the result of ingenuity alone, the curse which rests 
on machine-made art withers the beauty of the 
work. The structure must not be so difficult that 
art cannot make it seem easy and natural. 

The following, by Mr. H. B. Vanderbogart, is a 
chant royal on the pattern of Clement Marot, the 
rhymes being the same in all the stanzas and the 
scheme, a-b-a-b-c-c-d-d-e-d-e . 

The Beacon-lights 

The romance and the mystery of old 

Are fading slowly in the fading light 
Of tender memories, which ever hold 

Historic beauty from the falling night, 
Whose murky shadows close upon us bend — 
Oblivion whose days shall never end. 
Yet over all, beyond the distant sky, 
Like steadfast stars that shine eternally, 

Above the world, above its mournful biers 
We mark afar, with hope-enkindled eye, 

The watchlights burning through the endless years. 



314 THE FRENCH FORMS 

O lovers, whom the wings of love enfold, 

For whom have come the glories that requite 
All toils and pains, and cast in earthly mold 

The fair ideals of the true and bright, 
Whose spirits to the golden realm ascend, 
Where love his faithful servants doth commend, 
The hours of youth and joy before you lie, 
When heart responds to heart in low reply ; 

When lovers glimpse the light beyond the spheres, 
And through the mist of mortal life espy 

The watchlights burning through the endless years. 

And you whom grief in slavery hath sold 

To bitter pains that in your vitals bite, 
O'er whom the clouds of sorrow dark have rolled, 

And whom the world hath trodden down, despite 
Your weary struggles, you who have no friend 
To shield you from the storm, from foes defend, 
Who know the depths of sorrow's mystery, 
Be brave in doleful lot, but ask not why 

Your hearts are fuel for the fire that sears 
You now. In faith rekindle with your sigh 

The watchlights burning through the endless years. 

And you for whom the requiem is tolled, 
For whom a people said the burial rite, 
Fair freedom's soldiers, steadfast, true, and bold 

Behind the pennon of the red-cross Knight, 
Who never feared for men your blood to spend, 
And trod the thorny paths which upward trend 
Above the world, above this filthy sty, 
O brothers gone before, our tears are dry, 



THE FRENCH FORMS 31 5 

Your deathless names humanity reveres, 
And in your lives we hail with joyful cry 

The watchlights burning through the endless years. 

Alas, alas, my hand is faint and cold ; 

Nor is there strength sufficient in my might 
To grave in characters of fluent gold 

The fame of those who fought the noble fight ; 
If Milton's, Shelley's, Hugo's soul would lend 
Some force, my verse a loftier way might wend. 
It matters not how long in vain I try 
Song's tangled skein of beauty to untie, 

If he perchance who on these pages peers 
May see as faint reflections flickering high 

The watchlights burning through the endless years. 

Envoi 

Prince, take my humble song, and so — good-by ; 
Song's bird of paradise from me doth fly. 

But yet the heart of man discerns through tears 
Flaming in splendor that can never die 

The watchlights burning through the endless years. 

There are many other subordinate French forms 
of respectable antiquity ; as la Kyrielle, la Ba- 
telee, and la Brisee, which are short stanzas with 
internal rhymes. Le Lai is a series of short 
couplets, all rhyming, separated by still shorter 
lines also rhyming, for example : — 

La grandeur humaine 
Est une ombre vaine 
Qui fuit : 



3 16 THE FRENCH FORMS 

Une ame mondaine, 
A perte d'haleine, 
La suit. 

The virelai is much the same. A modified form 
of this meter is used by Calverley in two of the 
poems in Fly Leaves, with happy effect. 

The south of France, including the provinces 
of Languedoc, Provence, Gascony, Guienne, Dau- 
phiny, Lyonnais, and Limousin, was once largely 
independent of the literary culture of France 
proper. Its affiliations in language, race, and 
poetic expression were quite as much with north- 
ern Spain and northern Italy as with Paris. In 
the thirteenth century lyric poetry was developed 
in the Provencal language in many ingenious 
forms. The sestina was a curious metrical freak 
not without beauty in spite of its mathematical 
rigidity. The other Provencal forms, the canzone 
or ode, the serena or evening song, the aube (or 
alb), the morning song, the tenso or dialogue, and 
the serviente have much more flexibility, and are 
usually classic derivatives. Our word "serenade" 
is derived from the Provengal serena, and Shake- 
speare used the traditional material of the aube, or 
morning hymn, with beautiful effect in the parting 
of Romeo and Juliet : — 

Juliet. Wilt thou be gone ? It is not yet near day : 
It was the nightingale, and not the lark 
That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear ; 



THE FRENCH FORMS 31/ 

Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate tree. 
Believe me love, it was the nightingale. 

Romeo. It was the lark, the herald of the morn, 
No nightingale : look love, what envious streaks 
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east. 
Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day 
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops. 
I must be gone and live, or stay and die. 

The period of the development of Provencal 
lyric poetry corresponds nearly to the period of 
the crusades — from the eleventh to the thirteenth 
centuries — and it was in this sub-nationality that 
the crusading ardor was endowed with the most 
romantic devotion, and the institution of chivalry 
was carried to its most fantastic refinement. Every 
knight cultivated the gai science, and was a trouba- 
dour, as well as a soldier and courtier. But bishops, 
priests, ladies, lawyers, and doctors also wrote and 
sang verses, usually amatory or gently satiric. 
There is something unreal and operatic in this 
devotion to song by an entire community, and 
the trouveres, or poets, of northern France put 
more of the genuine stuff of romantic and narra- 
tive poetry in their work than did their southern 
brethren. Still, the spirit of the south of France 
has indirectly contributed to the poetic develop- 
ment of Europe through France itself, and in a 
less degree through England in the century after 
the Norman conquest, when the political connec- 



3l8 THE FRENCH FORMS 

tion between England and southwestern France 
was close. Richard I of England, it will be re- 
membered, was the son of Eleanor, Duchess of 
Aquitaine, and himself a troubadour of repute. 

The sestina, the only Provencal form we shall 
consider, has been but little cultivated in the Eng- 
lish language on account of the difficulties it pre- 
sents, and on account of its extreme artificiality, 
which gives it the character of a mathematical 
puzzle rather than a poetical structure. It is, 
however, interesting, not only as the very acme 
of metrical ingenuity, but as a musical compo- 
sition, mechanical in the extreme, but harmonious 
in the regular variations in the position of its 
rhymes, while the rhyming words themselves re- 
main unchanged in the six stanzas. 

It is a poem of six stanzas of six lines each 
concluded with a tornada or short stanza of three 
lines. Whether written in rhyme or blank verse, 
the six terminal words of the lines are the same 
in all the stanzas, but their order is curiously 
permuted. In the standard sestina the rhymes 
run a-b-a-a-b-b in the odd-numbered stanzas, and 
b-a-b-b-a-a in the even-numbered stanzas, and 
whenever a couplet is repeated the order of the 
rhyming words must be inverted. Further, the 
final word of each stanza is repeated as the final 
word of the first line of the next stanza, and the 
second line of each stanza closes with the same 
word as the first line of the preceding stanza. In 



THE FRENCH FORMS 319 

the tornada, which caps this curious and com- 
plicated metrical edifice, each line of the three 
must begin with a certain one of the original 
terminals, and end with another one, or else the 
first mentioned prescribed words must fall in their 
order in the middle of the lines, the position of 
the three terminal words being the same as be- 
fore. In order to fulfill all these conditions a 
"magic square" was devised. Representing the 
terminal words of the first stanza by the digits 
up to six, the arrangement runs : — 



First Stanza 
Second Stanza 
Third Stanza 
Fourth Stanza 
Fifth Stanza . 
Sixth Stanza 



1-2-3-4-5-6 
6-1-5-2-4-3 
3-6-4-1-2-5 
s _ 3 _ 2 _6-i_4 

4-5-I-3- 6 " 2 
2-4-6-5-3-1 



In the tornada the words represented by i, 3, 
and 5, must occur at the beginning or middle of 
the lines, and the words represented by 2, 4, and 
6 at the ends. The words represented by 1, 3, 
and 4 rhyme together, and so do the words repre- 
sented by 2, 5, and 6. 

An examination of the above arrangement will 
disclose many singular mathematical properties. 
Some of the simplest are: that the vertical col- 
umns if added give the same sum as the horizontal 
rows ; that any horizontal line can be deduced 
from the row above it by taking the figures in the 



320 THE FRENCH FORMS 

upper row in the order indicated by the figures in 
row No. 2 ; that the first rhyming couplet in any 
stanza is repeated in an inverse order as the last 
couplet in the next stanza ; that the non-rhyming 
words at the ends of any first two lines are re- 
peated in order at the ends of the fourth and fifth 
lines in every second stanza below. There are 
many more complicated sequences, all of which flow 
from the law of formation, which do not apply to 
the position of the rhymes, and therefore do not di- 
rectly affect the poem. The first figures in column 
i are the same as the second figures in column 2, 
and the same peculiarity appears in columns 4 and 
5 and in columns 3 and 6. Beginning with figure 
1 and reading downward to the bottom, and then 
going to the top we find the invariable order, 
1-6-3-5-4-2. The result is to give variety under 
uniform law. 

The following sestina follows the Provencal 
standard with strictness : — 

New Hope 

(A Sestina) 

December comes with bitter blast, 
The cruel, ruthless winter wind, 
And all sweet summer's bloom is past : 
But summer's hope will ever last, 
Although the icy shroud may bind 
The earth whose heart it cannot find. 



THE FRENCH FORMS 321 

After the snows the sun will find 
. And quicken seeds cold cannot blast ; 

The life that earth's deep heart doth bind 

Is stronger than the northern wind, 

Through changing years unchanged at last, 
Till springs and winters all are past. 

What though the autumn days are past ; 

The future hours will surely find 
The next year better than the last ; 
The summer's breath succeeds the blast 

Of icy winter's Arctic wind, 

Nor suffers long the frost to bind 

Earth's pulsing life. Frost cannot bind, . 

With feeble fetters of the past, 
The springtime's reinspiring wind. 
The bud, the flower, the fruit will find, 

When hushed is loud December's blast, 

The fiercest winter will not last, 

But, buried by the hours at last, 

Yield to its heir. The wreaths which bind 
Spring's robes are stirred by no rude blast ; 
The zephyr's breath, which overpast 

Leaves no leaf torn, will never find 

The cold caress of winter's wind. 

So in the bracing winter's wind, 

Harsh while its icy rigors last, 
By faith the summer's air we find ; 
And though December's frost may bind 

FORMS OF ENG. POETRY — 21 



322 THE FRENCH FORMS 

December's world, it soon is past, 
And we forget the winter's blast. 

Blow then, O blast of polar wind ! 

In days soon past, chill while they last 
And black frosts bind, new hope we find. 

Many sestinas are not written under the stand- 
ard formula. Mr. Swinburne has written one in 
which the rhymes run a-b-a-b-a-b. He observes 
the rule to make the terminals of the second lines 
the same as the terminals of the first lines of the 
preceding stanzas, and the terminals of the first 
lines the same as the terminals of the last lines of 
the preceding stanzas, and to use all the terminals 
successively in these positions. Having no further 
definite formula, his rhyme-scheme is chaotic, the 
only regulating principle being the avoidance of 
couplets so that in every stanza we find a-b-a- 
b-a-b. But the as are repeated in the same order 
twice and so are the b's. This is a matter of little 
artistic moment, but the essence of the sestina is 
uniformity of terminals with variety of position. 
Mr. Swinburne wrote also a double sestina, the 
Complaint of Liza, in which there are twelve 
Stanzas of twelve lines each, the twelve terminals 
being the same in all the stanzas. There are six 
rhyming pairs in the twelve end words, but they 
are distributed at random at intervals of from 
three to nine lines, so that in many cases the echo 



THE FRENCH FORMS 323 

is lost. The end word of each stanza is as before 
the end word of the first line of the next, the 
second line having the same terminal as the first 
of the preceding stanza. He is limited to the ob- 
servance of this rule, and the avoidance of ad- 
jacent rhymes so that his task is comparatively 
easy, for having written his first two lines in the 
prescribed order he has his choice of nine words 
to end his next line, of eight to end the next, and 
so on, so that no real difficulty is encountered till 
he reaches the eleventh line, when he has but one 
word to use to close his line. But he has not 
obeyed the first law implicitly, for in the tenth 
stanza he uses the word " me " as a closing word 
which has already been used in the first stanza. 
He should have used the word "dead." 

The only way to construct a sestina is, first, to 
write down the terminal words chosen, in the order 
prescribed by the formula for all the stanzas, and 
then fill in. This is, of course, a mechanical way 
of writing verse, but, after all, the sestina is more 
ingenious than poetic. The rhyming words must 
be chosen with some reference to the sentiment in- 
tended to be developed, and it is best to bring in 
some words which can be used as verbs and sub- 
stantives both, like " crown," or " blast." Or the 
first stanza may be written, and then the terminals 
for the five others written in the order prescribed by 
the formula. It will be in either case an exercise 
in verbal acrobatics, but not nearly so difficult as 



324 THE FRENCH FORMS 

it seems, and the result, if mechanical, will have, at 
least, the merit of structural unity. Mr. Kipling's 
unrhymed poem, the Sestina of the Tramp Royal, 
is full of vigor, and shows that the exigencies of 
the form do not prevent the artistic presentation 
of a conception. 

The fanciful forms of French verse, with their 
charming repetitions and artificial echoes, are not 
adapted to serious poetic expression. The greatest 
of our poetry is in simple forms, much of it, in- 
deed, in blank verse, where form is reduced to the 
simplest elements. But civilized man is subject to 
many moods, and the ingenious, artificial structures 
of old French poetry are not altogether foreign to 
most of us, and to people of the right temperament 
are extremely delightful. Formality has its own 
•charm when it is the mask of wit and sense and 
good humor. Even the sestina, technical and me- 
chanical as it is, has an attraction that is not 
entirely due to its antiquity. Its oddity largely dis- 
appears after examination, and the subtle changes 
in position prevent the repetition of the rhyming 
words from becoming monotonous. A normal 
sestina composed in English by a poet would, 
doubtless, be poetry. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE EPIC AND THE ROMANCE 

The branches of the great Aryan stock have 
passed through many successive stages in their 
long progress from the condition of tribes or 
hordes, united by the tie of descent from a com- 
mon ancestor, to that of modern nations with their 
complex social systems, frameworks of tradition, 
social habit, written law, personal and property 
rights, and class groupings. One of these stages, 
when the patriarchal tradition is not exhausted, 
and simplicity of manners coexists with consider- 
able development of authority on the part of the 
chieftain, and of individual freedom in the body of 
the people, is known as the " heroic age." It is a 
time of turbulence and family feuds. The consti- 
tution of society is aristocratic, but the aristocracy 
does not look down on the other orders of society 
as serfs or villains radically inferior in nature. The 
members of the aristocracy are personal leaders in 
war or adventure, or judges of the people, and do 
not disdain to engage in the ordinary occupations 
of herding or agriculture. This age is represented 
by the Achaeans of whom Homer sings, by the 

325 



326 THE EPIC AND THE ROMANCE 

Franks and Saxons in the time of Charlemagne, 
by the Germanic tribes who invaded Britain, and 
by the Scandinavians who settled Iceland in the 
ninth century. 

The poetry in which a people passing through 
this stage expresses itself is said to have the epic 
tone. Of course the literary quality of epic songs 
is determined by the artistic capabilities of each 
race and by their surroundings ; Beowulf or the 
Nibelungenlied are vastly inferior to the Iliad, but 
the general character of the society represented 
in all are similar. There is the same simplicity of 
vision, the same realism, the same glorification of 
personal conflict, the supernatural intrudes into 
the natural in the same primitive and unspiritual 
manner. Mr. Ker, whose Epic and Romance dis- 
cusses the subject at length, says that there is 
nothing in the whole range of English literature 
so like a scene from the Iliad as the Battle of Mal- 
don in Anglo-Saxon. In epic poetry personality 
or character is finely conceived, the narrator loves 
and appreciates the hero as a man. In the later 
romantic poems, however, the characters are 
vaguely portrayed ; the knights are abstract em- 
bodiments of the chivalric ideal. Odysseus and 
Birhtnoth, on the contrary, are distinct figures, and 
even Achilles, the idealized heroic type of the Hel- 
lenic race, is himself, - — energetic, passionate, and 
primitive. It is an epic feature of the Morte Darthur, 
a fifteenth-century recast of mediaeval romances 



THE EPIC AND THE ROMANCE 327 

that Gawain, Lancelot, and Arthur are marked 
personalities, whereas the subordinate characters 
like Balin, and King Mark, and Merlin have the 
true romantic indefiniteness. 

It is possible to conceive that the great epic 
narratives grew out of historic narrative ballads, 
which were added to, welded together, and wid- 
ened in scope by successive generations of bards, 
and finally recast by some one individual of ele- 
vated poetic genius. There is no historic proof of 
such a process. Mr. Ker says that the epical 
material of Iceland was left in a chaotic state, and 
that an age of more artificiality and literary self- 
consciousness followed the heroic age before any 
unification of the fragmentary songs or selection 
of any one hero as representative was made. 
Whether this would have taken place under any 
circumstances we cannot tell ; we only know that 
in Greece two long narrative poems embodying 
life in the heroic age were preserved, and that in 
the Germanic and Scandinavian countries a .body 
of poetry was produced having the same literary 
characteristics, but of far lower literary quality, be- 
cause it never crystallized into one supreme epic. 
It seems almost impossible that the Iliad and 
Odyssey could have received their unity from any 
source but the genius of an individual named 
Homer, though doubtless that exceptional genius 
worked on a large amount of material gathered by 
generations of predecessors, and inherited the use 



328 THE EPIC AND THE ROMANCE 

of a highly developed musical language in a com- 
munity accustomed to poetical expression. Even 
if Homer's material was old poetry, as Shakespeare's 
material was old plays and stories, the making of 
an Iliad or a King John out of the old material 
was the work of an individual. We may even 
admit that several earlier epical narratives have 
been used to form the Iliad without lessening its 
claims to be Homer's work and not an " agglutina- 
tion of ballads." 

The subject-matter of epical poetry is something 
of national interest, and the leading characters tend 
to become representative of broad national traits, 
and this, even before a political nationality in the 
modern sense is developed. The Greek tribes unite 
to rescue a woman stolen' from the household of 
one of the great families. A long desultory war 
follows, till the family of the ravisher in Asia is 
exterminated. One of the chieftains, prince of a 
petty island in the Mediterranean, encounters many 
delays and difficulties on his return. Songs about 
Achilles and Odysseus become favorites, and are 
repeated and expanded till, in the hands of an ex- 
ceptional poet, they become the expression of the 
Hellenic sense of race ; and the men and their as- 
sociates are typical, not merely of the warrior and 
adventurer, but of the Greek spirit of war and ad- 
venture. The struggle between the Moors of Spain 
and the Germanic tribes of Europe has the same 
ethnical interest and epical breadth, and is a proper 



THE EPIC AND THE ROMANCE 329 

matter for epical treatment in the song of Roland. 
Malory's Mo'rte Darthur, though essentially a ro- 
mance, is epical, in as far as its underlying sub- 
ject-matter is the defeat of the Celtic race and 
the tragic end of the last of the Celtic chieftains. 
Shakespeare's historical plays have an epical ele- 
ment, in as far as they turn on events of national 
importance. Macbeth has an epical quality, in that 
the character motives are simple and primitive — 
not "sicklied o'er by the pale cast of thought," 
and the action violent, decided, and rapid, and 
affecting the Scotch nation. But the true race 
epic, or heroic song, is the outcome of the heroic 
age, or that immediately succeeding, though some 
of its qualities of energy and simple motives may 
appear in literature of later periods. 

In saying that the subject of an epic is some- 
thing of historic interest, it is not meant that the 
historic importance of the events or historic accu- 
racy is regarded. The epic is built on historical 
tradition, and tradition is to fact as a vine which 
grows over a stone monument, at once hiding and 
ornamenting the outlines and covering the inscrip- 
tions, or even causing them to molder beyond 
recognition. The singer of the old epics felt the 
pride of race, and he rehearsed portions of what 
he had heard of the great men of the past, and 
colored the old stories imaginatively. Why a cer- 
tain name or a certain action should appeal to pos- 
terity is difficult to say ; but certain men are singled 



330 THE EPIC AND THE ROMANCE 

out as race heroes, and certain stories are singled 
out to be handed down, though others which are 
neglected might illustrate the fortunes of the race 
better. The imagination seems to work quite arbi- 
trarily in this selection, but doubtless it follows 
certain attractions. Why should Arthur be chosen 
from many British chieftains to be the central figure 
in so many stories, and be the one to be made a 
king of romance ? The epic poem is not a " rhymed 
chronicle," and its story may magnify a compara- 
tively unimportant historical episode. But it is an 
episode which appeals powerfully to the imagina- 
tion of the people, and represents in their conscious- 
ness the bond which unites them. 

But the word "epic," is not restricted to the dig- 
nified narrative of the heroic age. The term is 
habitually applied to Virgil's ALneid, Tasso's Jerusa- 
lem Delivered, and Milton's Paradise Lost. These 
are clearly not growths nor direct outcomes of the 
heroic age. They are produced by the poets of a 
later age and are each the work of an individual. 
The subjects are of national, or of broad human 
interest ; the founding of Rome, the Crusade when 
Christianity and Mohammedanism strove for the 
possession of the sacred city, or the contest of the 
embodiments of the spiritual forces of good and 
evil for dominion over the race of man. These are 
rightly called epics on account of the far-reaching 
importance of the events narrated, and the dignity 
of the style. We are, therefore, forced, as Mr. 



THE EPIC AND THE ROMANCE 33 1 

Theodore Watts says in the article on poetry in the 
Encyclopedia Britannica, to recognize two classes 
of epical poems — " epics of growth" and " epics 
of art " ; the one being the race epic, originally the 
oral song of the heroic age, and the other, the 
written epic, the work of a scholar-poet in an age 
of reflection and culture. But the race epic is the 
more typical since it is the outcome of a condition 
of society. The epic of culture is an attempt to 
imitate the true epic. Homer sets the pattern for 
Virgil. There are, then, two distinct uses of the 
word " epic." 

The romance, or romantic narrative poem, differs 
from the epic in tone and atmosphere. The 
Christian religion, the feudal system, and the in- 
stitution of chivalry were all powerful elements in 
the formation of character and manners. The 
Teutonic and the Latin races fused, and in fusing 
reacted on one another, in France. A community 
marked by sharp class distinctions between lord and 
serf with graded distinctions from top to bottom, 
in which certain occupations are reserved for the 
aristocracy and the labor of the common people is 
despised, lives in an atmosphere very different 
from that of the earlier heroic age. The intel- 
lectual activity and curiosity of the aristocracy is 
greater than before and finds expression in many 
fantastic and ingenious forms. The conventional 
code of morals and conduct is vastly more complex 
and artificial. Literary expression seeks new 



332 THE EPIC AND THE ROMANCE 

forms. The old-fashioned, direct, realistic narrative 
is overlaid with conceits and ornaments. The per- 
sonages, instead of being definite men and women 
from whose characters the action directly flows, 
become allegorical characters or names divested 
of any definite relation to humanity. They move 
in a world of superstition and oddities. A knight 
puts on his armor, saddles his horse and rides in 
any direction it happens. In the afternoon he 
comes on an unknown country where there is 
"a fair castle in a wood" which he has never 
heard of before though it lies within eighteen or 
twenty miles of his home. Here he meets a 
knight "well mounted, clad in black armor" who 
challenges him to fight. They fight three or four 
hours according to the rules, and the stranger 
yields. In yielding he passes the title to his real 
estate, and the newcomer takes possession of the 
house without any resistance on the part of the 
garrison. The castle turns out to contain some 
hundred odd young women, to whom the conqueror 
prudently gives their freedom. The detail of this 
matter is spun out for some three, six, ten, or it may 
be thirty thousand lines. The whole story is un- 
real, impossible, and unrepresentative of anything 
except some fanciful ideals of chivalry. Consider 
the opening of the Faerie Queene : "A gentle 
Knight w r as pricking on the plaine." With him 
was a fair damsel. We are not told where they 
came from nor where they were going. It is not 



THE EPIC AND THE ROMANCE 333 

necessary, because they are not real people who 
move from place to place on the earth ; they are ab- 
stractions — holiness and purity. Their adventures 
are not such as happen on this earth because they 
themselves are purposeless and motiveless. All is 
told in melodious, languorous verse which sounds 
like music heard in a dream. Compared to the 
Iliad or to the Battle of Maldon the difference be- 
tween the epic and the romance is seen to be 
very great, and to indicate forms of civilization 
based on different ideals. In the Iliad we are told 
that a pestilence is devastating the Grecian forces. 
A pestilence is, of course, owing to the anger of 
some god. That has been the simple creed of 
men up to the last two centuries. It is briefly 
explained how the wrath of the god has been in- 
curred, and how it can be removed by returning to 
her father a female slave in the possession of the 
head chief. A council of chiefs is held, and deter- 
mines that this must be done. The head chief 
says then that he will take the slave who has been 
awarded to another subordinate chief. A war of 
words ensues in which the subordinate tells the 
leader that he has " the eyes of a dog and the 
heart of a deer " — that he is impudent and cow- 
ardly. The subordinate is restrained by counsels 
of prudence — represented as a goddess — from 
open resistance. Both act and talk in a natural and 
human manner utterly foreign to the conduct of a 
hero of romance. The consequences of the anger 



334 THE EPI C AND THE ROMANCE 

of the subordinate and the imperiousness of the 
head are rapidly detailed, and one effect naturally 
follows another up to the reconciliation and the 
death of the chief of the Trojans, and through it 
all men talk naturally. The philosophy of life 
occasionally disclosed by the author is profoundly 
true and simple, and as readily appreciated by us as 
it was by his contemporaries. 

The above considerations may serve to outline 
the difference between the epical and romantic nar- 
rative poem. Of course, the epical poem has its 
own superstitions and impossibilities, but they are 
not " enchantments drear." Ulysses has about 
as much trouble with the gods as the Red Cross 
Knight has with dwarfs, demons, and giants, but 
the gods themselves act from motives and the hero 
is always on the real earth or sea. The charac- 
ters are men and women, not abstractions, and we 
find dramatic or idyllic passages resulting from 
the situations and the characters, not forced for 
obscure allegorical lessons. The romance has its 
own beauty, though from the fact that the charac- 
ters are little influenced by human motives or, if 
so influenced, do not respond in an intelligible 
manner, it is apt to lack interest. 

Chaucer's Romaunt of the Rose, the original of 
which was immensely popular, is an example of 
an allegorical romance. Palamon and Arcite and 
Troilus and Criseyde are romances based on 
classical tales. In the last the characters are far 



THE EPIC AND THE ROMANCE 335 

more distinctly drawn than is usual in romances, 
but the atmosphere is entirely chivalric, and the 
utter disregard of the natural conclusion that the 
lovers would have married rather than have allowed 
themselves to be separated is one of the absurdi- 
ties of romance. Several others of Chaucer's 
Tales are romantic, though he was by nature a 
great realist. 

The romantic spirit has persisted in literature, 
though observation and common sense is contin- 
ually pruning its extravagances. Shakespeare's 
Love's Labor s Lost is romantic in plot and concep- 
tion. The drama demands real characters and 
Shakespeare's perception of individuality made it 
impossible for him to write a play without direct ref- 
erence to human life ; so even in the Winter s Tale, 
Cymbeline, and the Tempest, romanticism is sub- 
ordinated to truth. A Midsummer-Night 's Dream 
is romantic both in language and machinery, but 
Theseus and Hippolyta are solid and dignified per- 
sonalities, and the clowns who present the play of 
Pyramus and Thisbe are no doubt realistic copies 
of Warwickshire carpenters and weavers. In 
Scott's Ivanhoe and The Talisman the romantic ele- 
ment preponderates, though there is a leaven of 
human nature in the characters. Coleridge's 
Christabel is a beautiful romance, and the fact that 
it is unfinished does not detract from its value, for 
a romance never has the absolute completeness of 
a realistic plot. The beauty of the poetry of Keats 



336 THE EPIC AND THE ROMANCE 

is largely the beauty of the romance, and in Endym 
ion the incidents follow one another with much 
of the lack of interdependence that characterizes 
the older romanticists. Hawthorne viewed the 
world from the standpoint of the romanticist as a 
stage where obscure influences controlled action, 
and the spiritual and occult molded the destinies 
of men and women, and the power of experience 
and reason and will were minimized. The plots 
of his stories are shaped by forces of the world of 
the imagination and the concatenation of events is 
unlike that which unites* the events of to-day to 
those of yesterday in the world made familiar to 
us by observation. But the law of causation, as 
he conceives it, is rigidly followed out, and in this 
he is more modern than the early romanticists like 
Spenser or Sidney, who construct a series of tab- 
leaux, and trouble themselves little about any con- 
nection between causes and effects. His people 
and their surroundings, too, are strikingly natural 
in all exterior matters. They are romantic in the 
fact that their conduct is regulated by external 
forces reaching their inner natures from a world 
outside of them. There is no reason that roman- 
ticism should not be true, because it presents the 
exceptional in character and conduct. We now 
explain the exceptional by assuming exceptional 
antecedent material causes, heredity, malforma- 
tion of the brain, and the like. Romanticism simply 
presents it and indirectly refers the explanation to 



THE EPIC AND THE ROMANCE 337 

the moral world. There are essential points of 
resemblance between the spirit of the chivalric ro- 
mance and the romance of all subsequent periods. 

The foregoing considerations outline the distinc- 
tion between the race epic and the romantic narra- 
tive poem. The two belong to different eras, and 
as far as poetry is a ''criticism of life," an inter- 
pretation of the world of men and things, the 
differences are profound. The one regards the 
world as a stage where energetic human wills, sub- 
ject to the most elemental social bonds, work out 
their destiny under the protection or against the 
opposition of the gods, and determine by their 
action the fate of their race or people. The other 
regards life as essentially mysterious, and the men 
or women with whom it concerns itself as domi- 
nated by a code extremely complicated and irra- 
tional in comparison with the simple loyalty of the 
heroic age. If their designs are frustrated or for- 
warded by supernatural powers, these too are law- 
less, unaccountable, and wayward, whether they 
are embodiments of spite or of benevolence. The 
difference between the epic and the romantic tale 
is hardly less than is the difference between either 
and the scholastic, didactic poetry of the eighteenth 
century, or the philosophic realism of the Ring 
and the Book. 

As the heroic age has long passed, the race epic 
can no longer be produced. Oral transmission is 
essential, and in no progressive community is oral 

FORMS OF ENG. POETRY — 22 



338 THE EPIC AND THE ROMANCE 

transmission possible after the invention of print- 
ing. In a remote district of northern Russia early- 
conditions have been preserved, but the country is 
too cold and too poor for the development of a race 
epic. Nevertheless, the people of a district lying 
on the north shores of Lake Onega have preserved 
in memory songs which date from the heroic age of 
Russia. The* poverty which has arrested develop- 
ment and prevented the intrusion of modern ideas, 
has allowed an isolation in which much of the 
freedom of early times has survived. Serfdom 
was never established, the country is too unpro- 
ductive to be taxed, and the soldiers that are an- 
nually drafted into the Russian army have been 
too few in number to affect the character of the 
community. Few of the people are able to read, 
and though Christianity became the official reli- 
gion of Russia in the ninth century, the concep- 
tions of the original cultus are still retained. The 
community lacks the energy of the heroic age, but 
has preserved many of the conditions of that age, 
dwarfed and thwarted by centuries of solitude, but 
not modified by outside civilization. 

In this vast and lonely region of swamps and 
forests, the traditionary songs of the Slavic race 
have been handed down unchanged through twenty 
generations or more by singers corresponding to 
the Greek rhapsodists who declaimed the Odyssey 
in the halls of chieftains or at the market places 
of the little towns. But creative power has en- 



THE EPIC AND THE ROMANCE 339 

tirely departed from the Russians who repeat the 
bylinas by rote, using, indeed, many obsolete words, 
the meaning of which is unknown to them and 
to their auditors, like the word " aurochs," the 
hame of a species of wild cattle long extinct in 
that part of the world. Attention was called to 
this survival of ancient song by the publication of 
a number of fragments collected by a government 
official named Rybnikof in 1861. He was sta- 
tioned on the western shore of Lake Onega. 
Fortunately he took a genuine interest in the an- 
cient poetry of his countrymen and made long 
journeys dressed in the garb of a peasant to hear 
the recitations of celebrated minstrels. On one 
of his voyages across Lake Onega he was forced 
by contrary winds to land on an island where he 
found a number of peasants, weatherbound like 
himself. Among them was a tailor, Leonty Bog- 
danovich, who in the primitive fashion journeyed 
widely in the Trans-Onega region, working at his 
trade in the houses where he was needed. He had 
a great reputation as a reciter of the traditional 
songs, and Rybnikof was so fortunate as to hear 
the Lay of Sadko, the Russian Ulysses, from his 
lips. Although the old minstrel's voice was thin 
and cracked, Rybnikof declares the impression he 
made, not only on the peasants as they sat round 
the outdoor fires in the spring night, but on his 
cultured listener was very remarkable. The peas- 
ants apparently, like children, believed every word, 



340 THE EPIC AND THE ROMANCE 

but to him it was something coming out of remote 
antiquity but still fresh and poetic in a novel sense. 
The following is paraphrased from Miss Hapgood's 
Epic Songs of Russia. The first is from the lay 
of Sadko, the merchant of Novgorod, the Russian 
Ulysses. 

" In the glorious city of Novgorod dwelt Sadko, 
the gusly 1 player. No golden treasure did he pos- 
sess ; he went about to the magnificent feasts of 
the merchants and nobles and made all merry with 
his playing. It chanced that one day he was not 
invited to any feast, and, being rather cast down 
at this evidence of waning popularity, he went to 
the shore of Lake Ilmen and sat down on a blue 
stone and played on his harp of maple wood. The 
waves rose, and the waters were clouded with sand 
until Sadko, becoming alarmed by the effect of 
his music, returned to Novgorod. This happened 
for three successive days. On the third day the 
Tzar Vodyanoi — the Water King — emerged from 
the lake and told him that he had been holding 
a banquet, and that all his guests had been de- 
lighted with the music. In fact it was their ener- 
getic dancing that had caused the disturbance on 
the surface. In gratitude for his entertainment 
the Water King tells him that next day he will be 
invited to a banquet, and that after the guests have 
eaten and drunk they will wax boastful. ' One will 
boast of his horse, one of the prowess of his youth, 

1 Gusly (goozly), an early Russian harp. 



THE EPIC AND THE ROMANCE 34 1 

one of his old mother, and the senseless fool, of 
his young wife. Then do thou boast also and say : 
I know what there is in Lake Ilmen, of a truth 
fishes with golden fins. Then shall they say that 
there are no fish of that sort. Then do thou lay 
a great wager with them, wager thy turbulent head 
against their shops and all their contents.' Next 
day it turned out as the Water King had foretold. 
Sadko took all the bets that were offered, and 
succeeded in wagering his turbulent head with six 
of the richest merchants of the city against six 
well-stocked stores. To settle the question they 
wove a net of silk, and proceeded to cast it in the 
Lake. At each cast they took a little fish with 
fins of pure gold. Sadko received the six shops, 
and their stocks, enrolled himself among the mer- 
chants of Novgorod, and became the richest mer- 
chant in Russia. Ke built a very beautiful palace 
and gave a great feast, not as a poor harper, but 
as the opulent host. He began to boast of his 
treasure and offered to bet thirty thousand rubles 
that he could buy out the whole town. This bet 
found takers. Sadko's experience in this trial is 
described very humorously. He discovered the law 
of political economy that demand creates supply. 
After his thirty buyers had been hard at work for 
some time, it was discovered that a vast store of 
goods had been forwarded from Moscow. Then 
Sadko fell into thought : ' If I buy all these goods 
from Moscow, others will flow hither from beyond 



342 THE EPIC AND THE ROMANCE 

the sea, and I am not able to buy all the wares of 
the whole white world. Sadko is rich, but glorious 
Novgorod is still richer. It is better to yield, my 
great wager.' This he wisely did, but, being now 
overstocked, he built thirty ships, thirty dark red 
ships and three. With these he sailed into the 
Neva, and on into the blue sea, directing his course 
to Constantinople. Here he sold out to very good 
advantage for gold and silver and pearls. On the 
return the ships halted, the waves dashed, the 
breeze whistled, the cordage strained, but they 
could not move the ships from that place. The 
sounding lead showed deep water, and there was 
no explanation except that the Sea King, the Tzar 
Morskoi, was detaining them. After various at- 
tempts to propitiate him by casting into the sea 
gold and silver and pearls, then spake Sadko : ' My 
brave beloved bodyguard, it is plain that the Tzar 
Morskoi calleth a living man from among us into 
his blue sea. Make ye therefore lots of alder 
wood and let each man write his name upon them 
and the lots of all just souls shall float, but that 
man among us whose lot sinketh, he also shall go 
from among us into the blue sea.' This was 
done and repeated three times, but always Sad- 
ko's lot sank. Then said Sadko, the rich mer- 
chant, l 'Tis plain that Sadko can do nothing. The 
Tzar Morskoi demandeth Sadko himself in the 
blue sea. Then, ho ! my brave beloved guards, fetch 
me my massive inkstand, my swan-quill pen, and 



THE EPIC AND THE ROMANCE 343 

my paper.' His brave beloved men brought him 
his inkstand, pen, and paper ; and Sadko, the rich 
merchant of Novgorod, sat in his folding chair at 
his oaken table and began to write away his pos- 
sessions. Much gave he to God's churches, much 
to his young wife, much to the poor brethren, and 
the remainder of his possessions he bestowed upon 
his bodyguard. 

" After that he wept and spake to his men, ' Ai, 
my men, well loved and brave, place ye an oaken 
plank on the blue sea, so that I Sadko may throw 
myself upon the plank, so that it shall not be 
terrible to me to take my death on the blue sea. 
And fill ye, brothers, a bowl with red gold, another 
with silver, another with seed pearls, and place 
them on the plank.' Then took he in his right 
hand an image of St. Michael, and in his left his 
harp of maple wood with its fine strings of gold, 
and put on him a rich cloak of sables, and bitterly 
he wept as he bade farewell to his brave company, 
to the white world, and to Novgorod the glorious. 
He descended upon the oaken plank and was 
borne upon the blue sea, and his dark red ships 
sped on and flew as if they had been black ravens. 
Then was Sadko, the rich merchant of Novgorod, 
greatly terrified as he floated over the blue sea on 
his plank of oak, and he fell asleep, and lo ! when 
he awoke it was at the very bottom of the ocean 
sea. He beheld the red sun shining through the 
clear waves, and he was standing beside a palace 



344 THE EPIC AND TH E ROMANCE 

of white stone, where sat the Tzar Morskoi with 
head like a heap of hay on his royal throne." 

The account of Sadko's adventures in the sea, and 
his final return to the upper world are more poet- 
ical, or rather handled more imaginatively, than 
what has gone before, and it is distantly suggest- 
ive of the visits to the underworld of Orpheus 
and Ulysses. 

The tale of Svyatogor, the Russian Hercules, is 
more elevated in tone, but not on that account 
more epical than the former. Svyatogor, w r ho 
belongs to the older mythological cycle, meets 
Ilya of Murom, the " peasant hero," the poetic 
embodiment of the Slavic race. After a series 
of adventures in which the superhuman gigantic 
character of Svyatogor is portrayed, they swear 
brotherhood and exchange crosses in token of 
friendship. 

" Then they rode together and Svyatogor taught 
Ilya all heroic customs and traditions. Svyatogor 
said to Ilya, ' When we shall come to my dwelling, 
and I shall lead thee to my blind father, heat a 
bit of iron, but give him not thy hand.' 

" So when they came to the Holy Mountains, to 
the palace of white stone, Svyatogor's father 
cried : — 

" ' Ai, my dear child ! Hast thou been far 
afield ? ' 

" ' I have been in Holy Russia, father.' 

" ' What hast thou seen and heard there ? ' 



THE EPIC AND THE ROMANCE 345 



" ' Nothing have I seen or heard in Holy Russia, 
but I have brought with me thence a hero.' The 
old man was blind, and so said : — 

" ' Bring hither the Russian hero, that I may greet 
him.' 

" In the meantime Ilya had heated a bit of iron in 
the fire ; and when he came to give the old man his 
hand in greeting, he gave him in the place of it the 
iron. And when the old man grasped it in his 
mighty hands, he said, ' Stout are thy hands, Ilya 
of Murom, a most mighty warrior art thou.' 

" Afterward Svyatogor and his younger brother 
journeyed among the Holy Mountains, and on the 
way they found a great coffin of stone, and upon 
the side was written, ' This coffin shall fit him who 
is destined to lie in it.' Then Ilya tried to lie in 
it, but it was both too long and too wide for him. 
But when Svyatogor lay in it, it exactly fitted him. 
Then the elder hero spake these words : ' The 
coffin was destined for me. Take the lid now, 
Ilya, and cover me.' Ilya made answer, ' I will 
not take the lid, elder brother, neither will I cover 
thee. Lo, this is no small jest that thou makest, 
preparing to entomb thyself.' 

" Then the hero himself took the lid and covered 
the coffin with it ; but when he would have raised 
it again, he could not, though he strove and strained 
mightily. Then he spake to Ilya : ' 'Tis plain my 
fate has sought me out. I cannot raise the lid ; 
do thou now try to lift it.' Then Ilya strove, but 



34^ THE EPIC AND THE ROMANCE 

could not. Said hero Svyatogor, ' Take my great 
battle sword, and smite athwart the lid.' But Ilya's 
strength was not enough to lift the sword and Svya- 
togor called to him : — 

" ' Bend down to the rift in the coffin that I may 
breathe upon you with my heroic breath.' When 
Ilya had done this, he felt strength within him 
thrice as much as before. He lifted the great 
battle sword, and smote athwart the lid. Sparks 
flashed from that blow, but where the great brand 
struck, an iron ridge sprang forth. Again spoke 
Svyatogor: — 

" ' I stifle, younger brother ; essay yet one more 
blow upon the lid with my huge sword.' Then 
Ilya smote along the lid — and a ridge of iron 
sprang forth. Yet again spake Svyatogor: — 

" ' I die, O younger brother. Bend down now to 
the crevice. Yet once again will I breathe upon 
thee, and give thee all my vast strength.' 

" But Ilya made answer, ' My strength sufficeth 
me, elder brother ; had I more, the earth could not 
bear me.' 

" ' Thou hast done well, younger brother,' said 
Svyatogor, ' in that thou hast not obeyed my last re- 
quest. I should have breathed upon thee the breath 
of death, and thou wouldst have lain dead beside 
me. But now, farewell. Possess thou my great bat- 
tle sword, but bind my good, heroic steed to my cof- 
fin ; none save Svyatogor may possess that horse.' 

" Then a dying breath fluttered through the crev- 



THE EPIC AND THE ROMANCE 347 

ice. Ilya took leave of Hero Svyatogor, bound the 
good, heroic steed to the coffin, put the great battle 
sword about his waist, and rode forth into the open 
plain. 

"And Svyatogor's burning tears flow through 
that crevice evermore." 

We might regard this fragment as " nature re- 
ligion," an effort to explain imaginatively the gush- 
ing of a hot spring as the tears of the demigod. 
Or we might interpret the death of the older hero 
as figuring the passing of the heathen cultus, the 
iron cross sealing its coffin irrevocably. The newer 
cultus inherits part of the spirit of the earlier as 
Ilya is strengthened by the breath of Svyatogor; 
but if it should receive more than it could assimi- 
late of the old philosophy, the inheritance would 
prove fatal. Christianity can take over part of the 
liturgy and formal worship of Rome, and much of 
the thought of Plato with safety ; but should it take 
both without reservation, it would be " breathed on 
by the breath of death." Not much ingenuity is 
needed to interpret mythological stories, as there 
is no way to test the interpretation. To assume 
that any occult reference to inner significance was 
consciously made by the originators of archaic 
poetry would be as irrational as to find a cipher 
in the mispunctuations of the text of Shakespeare's 
plays, or a solution of social problems in the con- 
duct of the plots. Nevertheless, natural poetry has 
a connection with all the social developments of the 



348 THE EPIC AND THE ROMANCE 

earlier times, especially with religious thought ; and 
a symbolism, due to an unconscious reaction in the 
poet's mind of different phases through which the 
race is passing, may find expression in verse, or, 
indeed, in any art. This is especially true of the 
northern races. The symbolical interpretation, 
though conjectural, is not entirely unjustifiable. 

These Russian tales, though containing a ro- 
mantic element, are essentially epic in their sim- 
plicity, and in that they are evidently written for 
the people, that is, not for a segregated aristocratic 
class. Though not based on national events like 
the epics of war, they are entirely racial. In the 
first the " bodyguard " is at once an armed retinue 
and a set of business associates and of confidential 
friends. Trade has none of the stigma which chiv- 
alry, the parent of romance, puts upon it. The 
songs are essentially national and Russian in the 
fatalistic attitude of the heroes. The deaths of both 
Sadko and Svyatogor are suicides. Neither meets 
death in the defiant manner of the Teuton. Sadko 
does not leap into the water in an exalted mood. 
He bows passively to fate in the dumb, uncom- 
plaining Slavic manner of one of Tolstoi's peas- 
ants, singing no triumphant death song, weeping, 
but not faltering. His comrades do not offer to 
accompany him, for their time has not come. 
When Svyatogor finds that the stone coffin fits 
him, he says, " It is plain that my fate has found 
me out;" and his comrade rides away after the 



THE EPIC AND THE ROMANCE 349 

entombment without a word of lamentation. The 
epic of a people more alien to us in temperament 
than any other of the European races shows us 
how intimately poetry reflects race character, es- 
pecially that part of character which is least super- 
ficial, but most controlling and distinctive. 

Of the heroic songs of the Anglo-Saxon or 
English race Beowulf is the most considerable 
in length. The fragmentary war song, The Battle 
of Maldon, describing a fight between the forces 
of the " Earl " Birhtnoth and a party of Danish 
pirates is epical in tone, and, as well as several 
other fragments, is evidently the expression of a 
community in which the early relations of chief- 
tain and comrades still prevailed. The duties of 
loyalty to the little community or tribe, of service 
to this limited public, and of meeting death un- 
flinchingly in the combat, are the substratum of 
the primitive ethics of our forefathers. On an 
implicit recognition of these duties national great- 
ness is built, and it explains much of subsequent 
history to find them recognized without question 
by our ancestors more than ten centuries ago. 
There is a touch of the fantastic ethics of chivalry 
when Birhtnoth withdraws his men from the river 
bank, and allows the Danes to cross unmolested, 
but the act seems to be prompted by a desire to 
get them over, that the fight may come off, rather 
than by an absurd unwillingness on the part of the 
captain to utilize any advantage he may have over 



350 THE EPIC AND THE ROMANCE 

the pirates. Birhtnoth is killed, some of his men 
fly, but the "old companion," Birhtwolf, prefers to 
die by the body of his chief. His defiance of 
death embodies the unconquerable temper of our 
race. ftis ethical vision is unclouded by any 
self-consciousness or thought of theatrical effect. 

Then spoke Birhtwolf, 

Raising his shield, 

He was an old comrade. 

He shook his javelin. 

With firm words 

He advised the fighting men ; 

" Mind shall be the harder, 

Heart the more resolute, 

Our mood shall be the firmer 

The more our strength lessens. 

Here lies our leader 

Slain in the contest, 

A true man in the dust. 

May he be accursed 

Who has a mind to leave 

This war-play. 

I am old of years, 

But I will not stir ■ 

From this spot. 

I am willing to lie 

By the side of my chief, 

The man I loved." 

It is impossible to give in any other medium but 
Old English the spirit of the poem and the impres- 



THE EPIC AND THE ROMANCE 35 1 

sion of actually hearing the crash of the swords 
and spears on the wooden shields. 

This poem is but a fragment, a description of a 
fight without introduction or conclusion. Beowulf 
is not only many times as long, but it is much more 
comprehensive. It embodies the familiarity of the 
old English race with the sea as well as its courage 
and love of conflict, and its conceptions of fealty 
and duty. It reflects the character of a race lack- 
ing in the artistic power of the Greeks, but superior 
to them in directness and simplicity of moral vis- 
ion and more capable of heroic sacrifice. The real 
value of early epic poetry is that it shows us what 
the original ideals of a people were and gives us a 
glimpse of fundamental qualities which still persist 
in their descendants and come to the surface when 
circumstances have removed the technical restraints 
of civilization and men of our race appeal to the 
wager of battle. The " old companion " still stands 
by his comrade in frontier warfare as steadfastly as 
Birhtwolf did by Birhtnoth on the shore of the river 
Panta, and dies in much the same matter-of-course 
way. The defense of the Alamo was as epical 
as the battle of Maldon, though chronicled in a 
different fashion. Fundamental race temper is 
not easily extinguished except by long-continued 
national corruption of law and morals, and is even 
taken up by foreigners amalgamated with the 
dominant race unless the proportion of the aliens 
be so great that they retain their own language 



352 THE EPIC AND THE ROMANCE 

through several generations. This race temper 
we can see best in the poetry of a race before it 
takes on the artificial conditions of modern civiliza- 
tion, modern, that is, in the sense of being later 
than the twelfth century. 

In the northern or Scandinavian branch of the 
Germanic race the heroic age was productive in 
mythological legends of a vague magnificence. 
The story of Brunhild and Sigurd, broad and power- 
fully conceived, is told in fragments never reduced 
to a coherent systematic poem by a great epic 
singer. Another portion of the same body of 
material, the revenge of Kriemhild, forms the sub- 
ject of the old German epic the Nibelungenlied. 
Is is not to be expected that the heroic age of every 
people should produce epical poems of the beauty 
of the Iliad, the artistic sense is not granted to all 
in the same measure, and the capacity of northern 
and southern languages for poetic expression is 
widely different — but simplicity and elemental 
force are characteristic of the early poems of the 
Germanic races. A wild, free delight in fighting is 
emphasized in them and they are marked by an 
absence of literary affectation and of fanciful 
ornament. The characters are greatly conceived 
and occasional passages are of the highest force as 
poetry. The subjects are of broad national or 
rather racial interest. In none of the Teutonic 
fragmentary tales, unless it be in the Battle of 
Maldon is any effort made to attain historical 



THE EPIC AND THE ROMANCE 355 

never more obstinately practical than at the time 
when romantic fiction was the admired method of 
depicting life imaginatively. Spenser himself was 
a methodical clerk of the Council and did not mix 
his dreams and his duties. Romance is a legiti- 
mate department of literature. The chivalric ro- 
mance is antiquated, no doubt, but there is much 
in modern literature, even when it assumes to be 
realistic, that is as impossible as Una and her lion, 
and not nearly as suggestive of radical truth. 

The romance and the epic are modes of poetic 
representations of life adapted to different phases 
of the human consciousness. In a general way, 
these phases distinguish different periods of his- 
torical development. It is only in a broad sense 
that they can be called poetic forms since they are 
not at all distinguished by verbal embodiment. 
Shakespeare is the only man who could express 
himself at will in either mode. Richard III, Lear, 
and Macbeth are instinct with the energy of the 
human will, Cymbeline and The Tempest and A 
Winter s Tale are romances. In the latter group 
the female characters are tenderly and delicately 
drawn, in the former the male characters are of 
Titanic energy. Both are muniments to his title 
of supreme poet. 

Dante's great poem is certainly not epical ex- 
cept in the simplicity and homeliness of the sim- 
iles. Nor is it a romance ; the passion is too 
intense and earnest. Rapturous adoration of an 



356 THE EPIC AND THE ROMANCE 

ideal of purity, and subjective religious mysticism 
are elements of the romantic spirit, but the great 
vision of- heaven and hell is seen too distinctly and 
described too realistically to be called a romance. 
It must be classified apart. 

Other divisions of poetry as didactic poetry, 
which, strictly speaking, is not poetry at all, but 
only rhymed sermonizing, will not be considered. 
The function of poetry is not to argue or expound, 
but to teach indirectly and not through an appeal 
to the intellect but to the aesthetic sense. The 
finest poetry in our language is dramatic, but the 
drama is too large and distinct a subject to come 
under the general head of forms of verse. The 
drama, too, is a mixed form and appeals quite as 
much to the eye as to the ear — we form a visual 
image of the speakers and scene even in reading a 
play. Satiric and humorous verse might form the 
subject of chapters, but no attempt is made at 
exhaustive treatment or even exhaustive classifica- 
tion in this book. If enough has been said to 
arouse interest in poetry and to show that art, 
even technical art, is a serious and worthy subject, 
the author's object is accomplished. 



INDEX 



Addison, Joseph, 73, 290. 
Address to the Deil, 266. 
Adonais, 45, 46, 47, 171, 193, 200, 

202, 223, 226. 
vEneid, 330. 
Agassiz, Sonnet to, 142. 
Akenside, Mark, Odes of, 162. 
Alamo, The, 351. 
Aldrich, Thomas B., 226, 299. 
Alexander's Feast, 146, 158. 

Song in, 244. 
Alliteration, 26. 
American Anthology, 273. 
Ammoretti, 116. 
Anacreon, Odes of, 147, 149. 
Ancient Mariner, The, y^, 86, 98. 
Annie Laurie, 267. 
Arber, Edward, 236. 
Arcades, Song in, 252. 
Arcadia, 115, 252, 279. 
Arnold, Matthew, 223, 232. 
Arthurian Legends, 353. 
As You Like It, Song in, 239, 252, 

258. 
Astrophel and Stella, 114. 
At the Sign of the Lyre, 308. 
Aube, The, 316. 
Auld Lang Syne, 265. 
Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, 

The, 299. 
Ave atque Vale, 223. 
Avis, 293. 



B 



Bacon, Francis, 238. 
Baker, George A., 300. 



Ballad, The, 60-106, 146. 
Anonymity of, 76. 
Antiquity of, 80. 
Binnorie, 96. 
Broadside, 70. 
Browning, Mrs., 74. 
Browning, Robert, 74. 
Chaucer, 66. 
Chevy Chase, 78. 
Collections of, 81. 
Conventional adjectives in, 79. 
Conventional numbers in, 79. 
Definition of, 61. 
Demon Lover, 82. 
Derivation of, 60. 
Divisions of, 81. 
Domestic, 87. 
Early English, 60. 
Etin the Forester, 88. 
Historical, 86. 
Judas Iscariot, 98. 
King John and the Abbot, 63, 64, 

65- 
Lament of the Border Widow, 95. 
Literary merit of, 78. 
Meter of, 65. 
Modern Historical, 87. 
not printed, 80. 
Objectivity of, 78. 
of superstition, 81. 
Othello, 71. 
Popular, 75. 
Riddle, 62, 63. 
Robin Hood, 65, 76. 
Scotch, 260. 
Sir Patrick Spens, 79. 
Teutonic form, 105. 



357 



358 



INDEX 



Ballad — Continued 
Thomas the Rhymer, 83. 
Throng, Theory of, 76. 
Twa Sisters, The, 97. 

Ballade, 61, 309. 

Ballade of Dead Women, 310. 

Ballade of Heroes, 309. 

Ball-room Belle, The, 292. 

Banks o' Doon, The, 266. 

Barbara Frietchie, 87, 105. 

Bard, The, 163, 165. 

Batelee, La, 315. 

Battle of Agincourt, 34. 

Battle of Ivry, 24. 

Battle of Maldon, The, 28, 326, 333, 

349. 352. 

Battle of Philipsburgh, 87. 

Battle of the Baltic, 267. 

Baudelaire, Charles, Verses on, 
224. 

Bay Psalm Book, 72. 

Beacon-Lights, The, 313. 

Beggar's Opera, The, 260. 

Beowulf, 326, 349, 351. 

Bewick and Grahame, 75, 78, 88. 

Binnorie, 88, 95, 96. 

Birth Bond, The, 138. 

Blake, William, 259. 

Blank verse, 38. 

Blossoms, Ode to, 283. 

Bogdanovich, Leonty, 339. 

Boke of the Duchesse, 190. 

Bonaparte, Ode to, 173, 174. 

Bonnie Dundee, 266. 

Border Widow's Lament, The, 95. 

Boughton, 306. 

Bowles, William L., 126. 

Break, Break, Break, 234, 270. 

Bridge of Sighs, 35. 

Brisee, La, 315. 

Browne, William, 246. 

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, Bal- 
lads of, 74. 
Sonnets of, 133. 



Browning, Robert, 53, 121, 133, 234, 
270. 

Ballads of, 74. 
Bruce of Bannockburn, 266. 
Brunhild and Sigurd, Story of, 352. 
Buchanan, Robert, 98. 
Buck, Dudley, 187. 
Building of the Ship, 186. 
Bullen, Arthur H., 236. 
Bunner, Henry C, 301. 
Burden of Nineveh, 21. 
Burns, Robert, 52, J2» 74. 232. 

Meter of, 43. 

Songs of, 265. 

Tam O' Shanter, 39. 
Butler, William A., 299. 
Bylinas, Russian, 339, 
Byrd, William, 237. 
Byron, Lord George G., 28, 44, 45, 
170. 

Childe Harold, 47, 166. 

Description of, in Adonais, 205. 

Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte, 173, 
174. 

Sonnet on Chillon, 130. 



Calverley, Charles S., 316. 
Campbell, Thomas, 267. 
Canterbury Tales, 39, 335. 
Canzone, Italian, 56, 316. 
Carmen Seculare, 147. 
Castle of Indolence, 45. 
Catullus, 278. 
Centennial Cantata, 187. 
Chant royal, 312. 
Chanting, 15. 

Chapman's Homer, Sonnet on, no. 

Chaucer, Geoffrey, 17, 29, 39, 44, 

45. 53. 68, 119, 153, 238, 297, 

334. 335- 
Ballad of, 66. 

Boke of the Duchesse, 190. 
Troilus and Criseyde, 68, 279. 



INDEX 



359 



Cherry Ripe, 254. 

Chevy Chase, 42, 75, 78, 87 

Child, Professor, 62, 81, 86. 

Childe Harold, 45, 47, 166. 

Chillon, Sonnet on, 130. 

Chivalry at a Discount, 298. 

Christabel, 30, 37, 155, 169, 335. 

Chronicle, The, 285. 

Coleridge, Hartley, Sonnet 01, 105. 

Coleridge, Samuel, 15, 29, 30, 37, 

53. 73. 86 > 8 7> 98, 108, 126, 155, 

165, 166, 193, 234, 335. 
Sonnets of, 127. 
Collier, Jeremy, 71. 
Collins, William, Odes of, 161. 
Version of dirge in Cymbeline, 

241, 242, 261. 
Colosseum, Lines on, 166. 
Come live with Me, 252. 
Commemoration Ode, 55, 146, 161, 

182, 183. 
Complaint of Liza, 322. 
Comus, 252. 

Congreve, William, on the ode, 161. 
Constancy, 259, 285. 
Corinna's Going A-Maying, 256. 
Cornwall, Barry, 233. 
Cowley, Abraham, 154, 285. 

Pindaric ode, 155, 157. 
Cowper, William, 42, 73, 266, 296. 
Crashaw, Richard, 258. 
Cromwell's Return from Ireland, 

153- 
Crossing the Bar, 270. 
Culture, Verse of, 297. 
Cymbeline, 50, 355. 

Dirge in, 241, 242, 261, 335. 
Cynthia's Revels, Song from, 245. 



Daffodils, To, 256, 283. 
Dancing, 60. 

Daniel, Samuel, Sonnets of, 118. 
Dante Alighieri, 17, 41, 136, 355. 



Dark Glass, The, 139. 
Davison, Francis, Poetical Rhap- 
sody, 281. 
Day of Doom, The, 72. 
Death and Dr. Hornbook, 266. 
Death, Sonnet on, 115. 
Defence of Poesie, 69. 
Dejection, Ode to, 169. 
Dekker, Thomas, 247, 255. 
Demon Lover, 82. 
Denham, Sir John, 156. 
Departing Year, The, 168. 
Detraction, Milton's sonnet on, 125. 
Devereux, Penelope, 114. 
Dirges, 189-228. 

Dobson, Austin, 292, 298, 300, 301, 
312. 

Ballade of Heroes, 309. 

Rondeau of, 305, 306. 

Rondel of, 303. 

To a Missal, 298. 

Triolet of, 307. 
Don Juan, 44. 
Dorothy Q., 299. 
Dorset, Earl of, 286. 
Drayton, Michael, Ballad of, 34. 

Sonnet of, 118. 
Drink to me only with thine Eyes, 

246. 
Dromore, Bishop of, 73. 
Drummond, William, 118. 
Drvden, John, 39, 146, 200, 258, 260. 

Odes of, 158. 
Duddon, Sonnets on, 127. 
Duenna, The, 260. 
Duncan Grey came here to Woo, 

266. 
Dunciad, 52. 
Duty, Ode to, 146, 166, 167. 



Earthly Paradise, The, 39. 
Easter Wings, 257. 
Ecclesiastical Sketches, 127, 129. 



360 



INDEX 



Edward, ballad, 95. 
Ellsmere, Lord, 71. 
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 226. 
End-stopt lines, 51. 
Endymion, 50. 
Epic, The, 325-356. 

Classes of, 330, 331. 

Early Russian, 338. 

Germanic, 352. 

Historic quality of, 329. 

Oral transmission of, 337. 

Scandinavian, 352. 
Epic poetry, Source of, 327. 

Subject matter of, 328. 
Epic Songs of Russia, 340. 
Epic tone, The, 326. 
Epistles of Waller, 153. 
Epithalamion, 40, 149, 150, 169. 
Etin the Forester, 88. 
Eve of St. Agnes, 45, 47. 
Evening, Ode to, 162. 



Faerie Queene, 45, 46, 332, 354. 
Fairfax, Edward, 44. 
Faithful Shepherdess, 252. 
Falstaff, 71. - 
Fancy Ball, The, 292. 
Farewell to Nancy, 266. 
Field Mouse, Lines to a, 162. 
FitzGerald, Edward, 298. 
Fletcher, John, 252, 253, 258. 
Flodden, Battle of, 353. 
Flodden Field, 87. 
Fly Leaves, 316. 
Foot, The, 11-14. 

Change of, 36. 

Greek names of, 14. 

Kinds of, 13. 
For Our Lady of the Rocks, son- 
net, 138. 
Forget Not Yet, 248. 
France, Ode to, 166. 
Freedom, Ode to, 166. 



French forms, 301-324. 
French romances, 39, 66. 



Gather Ye Rosebuds, 255. 
Gay, John, 260. 
George III, Ode to, 200. 
Gifford, William, 206. 
Gilbert, William S., 35. 
Go, Lovely Rose, 253, 283. 
Goldsmith, Oliver, 29, 34, 73, 
260. 

Song of, 261. 
Good-night to the Season, 292. 
Goody Blake, 73. 
Gosse, Edmund, 147, 286, 311. 
Gray, Thomas, 29, 73, 126, 148, 
161. 

Odes of, 162. 
Greek processional ode, 60. 
Greene, Robert, Songs of, 250, 255. 

H 

Habington, William, 285. 
Hail Columbia, 233. 
Hallam, Arthur, 210, 214. 
Hapgood, Isabella, 340. 
Happy Return, 153. 
Harte, Francis Bret, 36, 105. 
Haunch of Venison, 34. 
Haunted Palace, The, 271. 
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 336. 

Verses to, 226. 
Hazlitt, William, 193. 
Heathen Chinee, 36. 
Heaven, Ode to, 171. 
Henry VIII, 38. 
Herbert, George, 257, 259. 
Herbert, William, 246. 
Heroic songs, Russian, 339. 
Heroic verse, 38. 

Anglo-Saxon, 349. 

Germanic, 352. 

Scandinavian, 352. 



INDEX 



361 



Herrick, Robert, 232, 283, 296. 

His Lachrimse, 256. 

His Prayer to Ben Jonson, 255. 

Songs of, 254, 255, 256. 
Herve Riel, 74. 
Hesperides, 254, 283. 
Hexameter, Homer, 51. 

Virgil, 51. 
Heywood, Thomas, 250. 
Hieroglyphics, 257. 
Highland Mary, 266. 
Himself, Jonson's ode to, 152. 
His Lachrimae, 256. 
Hogg, James, 265. 
Hohenlinden, 267. 
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 52, 299. 

Odes, 187. 
Holy Grail, The, 354. 
Homer, 17, 51, 117, 325, 328. 
Homeric Unity, Sonnet on, 112. 
Hood, Thomas, 34, 35. 
Horace, 17, 126, 147, 238, 278, 280, 

290. 
House of Life, 137, 139. 
Howard, Henry, 113. 
How they brought the Good News 

from Ghent to Aix, 74. 
Hugh of Lincoln, 68. 
Hugo, Victor, Ode to, 179. 
Hunt, Leigh, Sonnet to, 132. 
Hunting Song, 266. 
Hurry of this Time, The, 305. 
Hymn on the Nativity, 153. 
Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, 171. 
Hymn to Sunrise, 169. 
Hynde Etin, 88. 

I 
Iambic, Effect of, 32. 
Iceland, Epics of, 327. 
Idiot Boy, 73. 
II Penseroso, 58. 
Iliad, 230, 326, 327, 333, 352. 
Translation of, 49, 50. 



Ilya of Murom, 344. 

I. M. S., Verses of, 192. 

Incognita, 293. 

In Memoriam, 43, 150, 193. 

Paraphrase of, 212. 
In Memory of Walter Savage Lan- 

dor, 224. 
Intimations of Immortality, 56, 57, 

58, 148, 155, 166, 169. 
Invocations to Flowers, 198. 
Irregular meter, 54. 
Ivanhoe, 86, 335. 

J 

Jerusalem Delivered, 44, 330. 
John Burns at Gettysburg, 105. 
John Gilpin's Ride, 42, 73. 
Johns Hopkins University, Ode to, 

188. 
Johnson, Samuel, 73, 126, 166. 

on Milton's sonnets, 126. 

Verses on Levett, 263. 
Jonson, Ben, memorial verses, 191, 
192. 

Ode of, 152. 

Prayer to, 255. 

Song of, 245, 253. 
Judas Iscariot, Ballad of, 86, 98. 
Julian and Maddalo, 54. 

K 
Keats, John, 19, 45, 47, 49, 52, 53, 
54, 86, 109, 148, 149, 166, 170, 
190, 201, 336. 
Endymion, 50. 

Grecian Urn, Ode to, 174, 175, 176. 
Lines on the Mermaid Tavern, 

33- 

Nightingale, Ode to, 174, 175. 

Odes, 174. 

Sonnets, no, 131, 132. 
Keeler, Ralph, Verses on, 226. 
Killigrew, Mrs. Anne, Ode to, 200. 
Ker's Epic and Romance, 326. 



362 



INDEX 



King John, 328. 

King John and the Abbot, 63-65. 

King Lear, 355. 

King's College Chapel, Sonnet on, 

129, 130. 
Kingsley, Charles, Songs of, 234. 
King's Tragedy, 86. 
Kipling, Rudyard, 270, 324. 
Kriemhild, Story of, 352. 
Kyrielle, La, 315. 
Kubla Khan, 155, 169. 



L'Allegro, 37. 

La Belle Dame sans Merci, 86. 

La Rochefoucauld, Francois, 280. 

Ladder of the Heart, 257. 

Lai, Le, 315. 

Lake Isle of Innisfall, 31. 

Lament of Duncan, 266. 

Lament of the Border Widow, The, 

95-. 
Landor, Walter S., 296. 

Verses on, 178, 224. 
Lang, Andrew, Sonnet of, 112. 
Lanier, Sidney, 21. 

Ode of, 146, 187, 188. 
Last Leaf, 52, 299. 
Late Massacre in Piedmont, no. 
Laus Deo, 186. 

Lawrence, Milton's sonnet to, 125. 
Lay of Sadko, 340. 
Lay of the Last Minstrel, 74, 86. 
Lazarus, Emma, Sonnets of, 143. 
Lead, Kindly Light, 33, 61. 
Learned, Walter, 300. 
Letter to Maria Gisborne, 54. 
Levett, Dr., Verses on, 263. 
Liberty, Ode to, 162, 166, 171. 
Life and Death of Sardanapalus, 

Sonnet on, 113. 
Lilly, Laura, Verses to, 291. 
Lincoln, Ode on, 183, 184, 185. 
Lindsay, Lady, 265. 



Line, The, 14-25. 
Lines on the Mermaid Tavern, 33. 
Lochinvar, 266. 
Locker-Lampson, Frederick, 292, 

296, 298. 
Locksley Hall, 38. 
Longfellow, Henry W., 28, 29, 87, 
226, 273. 

Ode, 186. 

Skeleton in Armor, 51. 

Sonnets of, 141. 
Lord Burleigh, ballad, 74. 
Lotus Eaters, The, 46, 47, 48. 
Lovelace, Richard, 258, 259. 

Verses of, 285. 
Love's Labor's Lost, 50, 335. 
Lowell, James Russell, 55, 161, 273. 

Commemoration Ode, 182, 183. 

Under the Old Elm, 185. 
Lucasta, To, 258. 
Lucile, 293. 
Lycidas, 55, 153, 155, 193, 194, 223, 

226. 
Lyly, John, song, 244. 
Lyra Elegantium, 296. 
Lyric, The, 229-274. 

American, 273. 

Bacon, 238. 

Definition of, 229. 

Elizabethan, 236, 254. 

Nineteenth century, 270. 

Poe, 271. 

Provencal, 317. 

Seventeenth century, 254. 

Shelley, 269. 
Lyrical tone, Change in, 258. 

M 
Macaulay, Thomas B., 24. 
Macbeth, 329, 355. 
Madrigal, 249. 
Malory, Thomas, 329, 353. 
Mandalay, 270. 
Marlowe, Christopher, 27, 252. 



INDEX 



363 



Marmion, 74, 87, 353. 
Marot, Clement, 313. 
Marriage Hymn, 221. 
Marseillaise, La, 235. 
Marvel, Andrew, 153. 
Maud, 270. 

Meliboeus, Tale of, 68. 
Memory, Ode to, 179. 
Meredith, Owen, 280. 

The Portrait, 293. 
Meres, Francis, 118. 
Merington, Marguerite, 274. 
Meter, 25. 

Meum est propositi! m, 66. 
Middleton, Thomas, 258. 
Midsummer-Night's Dream, A, 

335- 
Mifflin, Lloyd, Sonnets of, 143. 
Mill Dams of Binnorie, 95. 
Milton, John, 19, 29, 37, 50, 55, 108, 

153. I 5S. 200 > 2o8 - 33°. 354- 

Hymn on the Nativity, 153. 

II Penseroso, 20. 

LAllegro, 20, 37. 

Lycidas, 193, 194. 

Shelley's verse on, 203. 

Song of, 252. 

Sonnets of, no, 124. 
Milton, Sonnet on, 128. 
Minstrelsy of the Border, 83. 
Miss Kilmansegg, 34, 35. 
Mistress Flouted, 285. 
Modulated variety, 58. 
Mogg Megone, 87. 
Moliere, Jean Baptiste, 279. 
Molly Trefusis, 298. 
Monk's Tale, 45. 
Monroe, Harriet, Ode of, 187. 
Mont Blanc, Ode to, 166, 171. 
Moody, William V., Odes of, 188. 
Moore, Thomas, Songs of, 267, 296. 

Verse on, 205, 

Verses on Death of Sheridan, 
268. 



Morris, William, 39. 

Morte Darthur, 326, 329. 

Mountain Daisy, To a, 266. 

Mouse, To a, 266. 

My Love is like a Red, Red Rose, 

265. 
My Partner, 292. 

N 
Nairn, Lady, 265. 
Nameless Grave, The, 142. 
Naples, Ode to, 166, 173. 
New Hope, a sestina, 320. 
New Inn, The, 152. 
Newman, John, 33. 
Nibelungenlied, 326, 352. 
Nightingale, Ode to, 146, 174, 175, 

176. 
Night, Sonnet on, 108. 
Normans, 66. 

Notes of a Honeymoon, 307. 
Nothing to Wear, 299. 



Ocean, Address to, 166. 
Ode, The, 146-188. 

Anacreon's, 149. 

Byron's, 173. 

Centennial Cantata, 187. 

Choral, 167. 

Coleridge's, 168. 

Collins's, 161. 

Commemoration, 182. 

Cowley's, 157, 161. 

Definition of, 147. 

Derivation of, 146. 

Dryden's, 158, 200. 

Eighteenth century, 166. 

Gray's, 163. 

Greek processional, 60, 164. 

Horatian, 17, 147. 

Hymn on the Nativity, 153. 

Intimations of Immortality, 55, 
56, 58, 155, 166, 167. 



3^4 



INDEX 



Ode — Continued 

Irregular, 155. 

Italian, 149. 

Jonson's, 152. 

Keats's, 174. 

Kinds of, 146. 

Lanier's, 187. 

Longfellow's, 186. 

Lowell's Commemoration, 182. 

Marvel's, 153. 

Milton's, 153. 

On St. Cecilia's Day, 146. 

On the Duke of Wellington, 148, 
179, 190. 

Patmore's, 177. 

Pindaric, 57, 157. 

Sappho's, 149. 

Shelley's, 171. 

Spenser's, 150. 

Swinburne's, 178. 

Tennyson's, 179. 

To a Nightingale, 175. 

To Duty, 167. 

To Liberty, 171, 173. 

To Naples, 166, 173. 

To Napoleon Bonaparte, 173. 

To the Unknown Eros, 177. 

To the West Wind, 41, 42, 166, 
269. 

To Victor Hugo, 179. 

Under the Old Elm, 185. 

Wordsworth's, 55, 56, 167. 
Odyssey, 327, 338. 
Old Sedan Chair, 298. 
Omar Khayyam, 43. 
On a Girdle, 258, 283. 
On the Morning of Christ's Nativity, 

153- 
Othello, Story of, ballad, 71. 
Ottava rima, 44. 
Our Lady of the Rocks, sonnet, 

138. 
O Waly, Waly, 261. 
Ozymandias, Sonnet on, 131. 



Palamon and Arcite, 334. 
Pan in Wall Street, 299. 
Panegyric on the Lord Protector, 

153- 
Paradise Lost, 169, 277, 330, 353. 
Parsons, Thomas W., 143. 
Passions, ode, 162. 
Pastoral poetry, 251. 
Patmore, Coventry, 177. 
Paul Revere's Ride, 87. 
Pembroke, Lady, Verses on, 246. 
Percy and Douglas, Battle of, 69. 
Percy, Thomas, 73, 76. 
Peter Bell, 73. 

Petrarch, Francis, 17, 117, 136, 310. 
Phonetic syzygy, 27. 
Pibroch of Donuil Dhu, 266. 
Pindar, 69, 163. 

Odes of, 149, 154. 
Places of Worship, Sonnet on, 129. 
Poe, Edgar Allan, 29. 

The Haunted Palace, 271. 
Poems on Several Occasions, 259. 
Poetic Syntax, 48-54. 
Poetical Rhapsody, 281. 
Poetry, Justification of, 7. 

Pastoral, 251. 

Pleasure from, 8. 
Pope, Alexander, 39, 50, 51, 52, 73, 
243, 290. 

Translation of Iliad, 49. 
Portrait, The, 293. 
Portuguese, Sonnets from the, 133, 

134. 135. 
Praed, Winthrop M., 290, 291, 296, 

298, 300. 
Prayer to Ben Jonson, His, 255. 
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, 136. 
Princess, The, 270. 
Prior, Matthew, 259, 288, 296, 300. 

Verses, 288. 
Procter, Bryan Waller, on Songs, 

233- 



INDEX 



365 



Progress of Poesy, 163. 
Provence, 316. 
Psalm, 138th, 72. 
Psalm of the West, 188 



Quarles, Francis, 257. 



Raleigh, Sir Walter, Sonnet of, 117. 

Rape of the Lock, 290. 

Refusal of Aid between Nations, 

Sonnet on, 141. 
Remonstrance by Shakespeare, 162. 
Renaissance, 253. 
Retaliation, 34. 

Revolt of Islam, The, 45, 171. 
Reynolds, Joshua, 166. 
Rhyme, Definition of, 15. 
. Imperfect, 18. 

Perfect, 15. 

Sporadic, 17. 

Terminal, 16, 17. 

Vicious, 25. 
Rhythm, 29-40. 
Richard I, 318. 
Richard III, 355. 
Rime of the Duchess May, 74. 
Ring and the Book, The, 337. 
Ring out, Wild Bells, 221. 
Robin Hood, 76, 86. 
Robin Hood and the Monk, 65. 
Romance, different from epic, 333. 

Origin of, 331. 

Tone of, 332. 
Romances, Chaucer's, 279, 334. 

French, 39, 66. 
Romantic Tone, in Coleridge, 335. 

in Hawthorne, 336. 

in Keats, 335, 336. 

in Scott, 335. 

in Shakespeare, 335. 
Romaunt of the Rose, 39, 334. 
Romeo and Juliet, 230. 



Rondeau, 305. 

Rondel, 302, 303. 

Rondelet, 304. 

Rose Leaves, 307. 

Rosemary, 74, 86. 

Rossetti, Dante G., 295, 310. 

Ballads of, 74, 87. 

Burden of Nineveh, 21. 

Sonnets of, 136. 

White Ship, 40. 
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, 43. 
Russian epic songs, 338, 348. 
Rybnikof, 339. 
Ryme of Sir Thopas, 66. 



Sacharissa, 283. 

Sackviile, Charles, 286. 

Sadko, Lay of, 339. 

St. Agnes's Eve, 47. 

St. Cecilia's Day, Ode for, 158. 

Sappho, 149. 

School and Schoolfellows, 292. 

Scollard, Clinton, 300. 

Scotland, Songs of, 264. 

Scott, Walter, 39, 74, 8i, 86, 87, 335, 

353- 

Minstrelsy of the Border, 83. 

Songs of, 234, 265, 266. 
Septenaiius, 65. 
Serena, 316. 
Serviente, 316. 
Sestina, 318. 

Example, 320. 

Formula, 319. 

Swinburne's, 322. 
Sestina of the Tramp Royal, 324. 
Seward, Anna, 126. 
Shakespeare, William, 19, 27, 29, 37, 
38, 50, 51, 118, 121, 239, 240, 250, 
255, 258, 261, 265, 297, 328, 329, 

335- 
As You Like It, 239. 
Memorial Verses on, 192. 



366 



INDEX 



Shakespeare- Continued 
Romeo and Juliet, 316. 
Sonnets of, n 9) 230, 236 
Twelfth Night, 241. 
Venus and Adonis, 19 
Winter's Tale, i 97 . ' 
Shakespeare-Bacon proposition, 

Shelley, Percy B., i 9 , 2G , 28, 20 4I 
45. 47, 170, 174, 234. 
Adonais, 193, 200, 202. 
Epitaph of, 206. 
Letter to Maria Gisborne, 54 
Lyric, 269. °^ 

Ode to Liberty, 166, i 7 i, I?3 
Ode to Naples, i66, i 73 
Ode to the West Wind, 41, l66 

269. 
Skylark, 20. 
Sonnet of, 131. 
Shephearde's Calendar 252 
Sheridan, Richard B., 260 

Verses on death of,' 267/268. 
Mnrley, James, 258. 
Sidney, Lady Dorothy, 283 
Sidney, Mary, Verses on, 246 
Sidney, Sir Philip, 114,252,279,336 
Defence of Poesie, 69. 
Sonnets of, u 5( 236. 
Sir Patrick Spens, 79 87 
Sister Helen, 86. 
Skeleton in Armor, 51. 
Skylark, 173. 
Slavic Songs, 338. 
Society verse, 275-300. 
Art in, 276. 
Definition of, 275. 
Derivation from Horace, 278 
Indebtedness to chivalry 279 
Indebtedness to France, 270 ' 
Origin of, 278. 
Tone of, 278. 
Song, The, 229-274. 
Arcades, 252. 



s °ng— Continued 
Byrd's, 237. 
Burns's, 265, 266, 267. 
Cherry Rj pe , 254. 
Definition of, 232. 
Dekker's, 247. 
Eighteenth century 2 kq 
Elizabethan, 236. ' 
Goldsmith's, 261. 
Greene's, 250. 
Haunted Palace, 271. 
Herri ck's, 254. 
Hey wood's, 250. 
in dramas, 253. 
Introduction of, 236. 
Jonson's, 245. 
Lyly's, 244. 
Milton's, 252. 
Moore's, 267. 
of the Civil War, 234 
O Waly, Waly, 261.' 
Scotch, 264. 
Scott's, 266. 
Tennyson's, 270. 
Upon Julia's Hair, 254 
Written at Sea, 286. 
Wyatt's, 248. 

Song ofthe Brown Rosary 74 
Songs to the Muses, 259 
Sonnet, The, 107-145. 

Astrophel and Stella, n 4 

Beauty of, 144. 

Byron's, 130. 

Chapman's Homer, no. 

Definition of, 107. 

Drayton's, 118. 

From the Portuguese, r 33 , m 

Hartley Coleridge's, 105 
Homeric Unity, i I2 . * 
House of Life, 137. 
Introduction, 113. 
Italian, m, 
Italian variant, n 2 . 



INDEX 



367 



Sonnet — Continued 
Keats's, no, 132, 133. 
Lang's, 112. 

Late Massacre in Piedmont, no. 
Life and Death of Sardanapalus, 

"3- 

Longfellow's, 141. 

Lyrical character of, 236. 

Metrical rale, in. 

Milton's, no. 

Nameless Grave, The, 142. 

Night, 108. 

on Milton, 128. 

on the sonnet, 144, 145. 

Raleigh's, 117. 

Rossetti's, 136, 144, 145. 

Rules of, 107. 

Sequences, 114. 

Shakespeare's, 113, 118, 119. 

Shelley's, 131. 

Sidney's, 115. 

Spenser's, 116. 

Symmetry and asymmetry of, 143. 

To Agassiz, 142. 

Venice, 128. 

Watts's, 145. 

Westminster Bridge, 109. 

White's, 108. 

Wordsworth's, 109, 127, 144. 
Sonnetto, 107. 
Sordello, 53, 54. 
Southey, Robert, 57, 200. 
Spenser, Edmund, 45, 46, 119, 149, 

252. 336, 354. 355- 

Epitbalamion, 40, 150, 169. 

Faerie Queene, 45, 46, 354. 

Sonnets of, 116, 117, 236. 
Stanza, The, 40-48. 

Seven-line, 44. 

Spenserian, 45, 46. 
Star-Spangled Banner, 233. 
Stedman, Edmund C, 133, 226, 299. 

American Anthology, 273-274. 

Ode of, 182. 



Steele, Richard, 290. 
Suckling, John, 259, 285, 296. 
Surrey, Earl of, 113, 114, 149, 236, 

248. 
Svyatogor, Tale of, 344-347. 
Swift, Jonathan, 296. 
Swinburne, Algernon C, 19, 27, 36, 
40, 223, 301. 

A Watch in the Night, 23. 

In Memory of Landor, 178, 224. 

Ode of, 178. 

Ode to Victor Hugo, 179. 

Roundel of, 303, 304. 
Symonds, J. A., 236. 



Talisman, The, 335. 
Tarn O* Shanter, 39. 
Tasso, Torquato, 44, 330. 
Tempest, The, 335, 355. 

Song in, 240. 
Tennyson, Alfred, 15, 29, 46, 47, 50, 
133, 148, 150, 155, 234, 270. 

Ballads of, 74. 

In Memoriam, 43, 193, 210-223. 

Locksley Hall, 38. 

Marriage Hymn, 221. 

Ode, 179, 180, 183, 190. 

Two Voices, 41. 
Tenso, 316. 
Terza rima, 41. 
Teutonic tales, 352. 
Thackeray, W. M., 296, 297. 
Thalaba, 57. 
The world is too much with us, 

sonnet, 127. 
Think and Act, sonnet, 140. 
Thomas, Edith, Sonnets of, 143. 
Thomas the Rhymer, 83. 
Thomson, James, 45. 
Thorpe, Thomas, 119. 
Three Fishers, The, 234. 
Three Friends of Mine, sonnet, 141. 
Three-syllable feet, 33. 



368 



INDEX 



Threnody, 226. 

Thyrsis, 223. 

Time beat, Normal, 12. 

To Agassiz, sonnet, 142. 

To Althea from Prison, 285. 

To a Missal, 298. 

To Chloe, 288. 

To Lucasta, 258. 

To Victor Hugo in Exile, 179. 

Tolstoi, Count, 348. 

Tornada, 319. 

Tourneur, Cyril, 258. 

Toussaint L'Ouverture, sonnet, 127. 

Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, 234. 

Triolet, 307. 

Troilus and Criseyde, 44, 68, 153, 

279. 334- 
Troy Town, 74. 
Twa Corbies, The, 95. 
Twa Sisters, The, 97. 
Twelfth Night, song, 241. 
Two Sayings, Sonnet on, 136. 
Two Voices, The, 41. 

U 
Ulysses, 7. 

Under the Old Elm, 185. 
Unknown Eros, Ode to, 177. 
Upon Julia's Hair, 254. 
Usage of Poets, 19. 



Vanderbogart, H. B., 313. 
Variety, Modulated, 58. 
Venice, Sonnet on, 127, 128. 
Vers de Societe, 275. 
Verse, American society, 299. 

End-stopt, 50. 

of culture, 297. 

Overflow, 50. 

Society, 275. 
Vicar, The, 298. 
Vicar cf Wakefield, 260. 
Villanelle, 311. 



Villon, Francois, 310. 
Virgil, 51, 251, 330. 
Virgins, To the, 256. 
Virtue, 259. 
Vision of Judgment, 44, 174. 

W 

Waller, Edmund, 153, 258, 283. 
Warton, Thomas, 126. 
Watch in the Night, A, 23, 178. 
Watts, Theodore, 145, 331. 
Wellington, Ode on, 148, 155, 179, 

182, 190. 
Westminster Bridge, Sonnet on, 

109, 127. 
West Wind, Ode to, 166, 171, 173. 
W. H., 120. 

White, Blanco, Sonnet by, 108. 
White Ship, 74, 87. 
Whitman, Walt, 58. 
Whittier, John G., 87, 105, 186, 

273- 
Wigglesworth, Michael, 72. 
Winter's Tale, A, 70, 198, 335, 355. 
Wishes to His Supposed Mistress, 

258. 
Wister. Owen, Odes of, 188. 
Wither, George, 281. 
World's Fair, Ode at, 187. 
Wordsworth, William, 15, 50, 53, 
55- 5 6 > 57. 73. 108, 121, 123, 
127, 130, 148, 155, 161, 165, 
166, 178. 
Intimations of Immortality, 166, 

169. 
Odes of, 166. 
Ode to Duty, 167, 168. 
Sonnets of, 109, 127, 144. 
Wyatt, Thomas, 113, 115, 149. 
Song of, 236, 248. 



Yale Bicentennial, Ode at, 182. 
Yeats, William B., 31. 






^ » Hi 



X 00 ' 







; ^ v* ; Jilt W 

y - * * ° - ^ 




x^ 






N*\ i 



Deacidified us 



^> V 



Deacidified us 
Neutralizing ac 






Treatment Dat 

Preserve 



%4 




0_ 



/,-<s >*S:° 



o<y 



i? 




'*'■ >*' 











,0 c> 



LIBRARY 



CONGRESS 






